


to live with thee

by aw marvel no (getoffmysheets)



Series: all the pleasures prove [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: All the Awful Sex Jokes, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Artist Steve Rogers, Awesome Peggy Carter, Barnes and Barton Present:, Bucky Barnes: Actual Teddy Bear, Bucky Barnes: Head Asskicker, Clint and Natasha are the Best Bros, Coulson and May: Actual Parents, Daisy is a big fan of everything happening here, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mutual Pining, Ridiculous, Sam Wilson ain't having this shit, Steve Rogers is a tiny badass, Team as Family, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, shrinkyclinks, this will be as cute as you can fucking stand, yet they are somehow still superheroes?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-02-15 05:45:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 69,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13024515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getoffmysheets/pseuds/aw%20marvel%20no
Summary: In modern day Brooklyn, Steve Rogers meets Bucky Barnes and they fall in love, despite the dangerous secrets living between them.





	1. when rivers rage

Beside him, Sam sighs heavily.

Steve, sipping at his soy latte and sketching outlines for their new client, stares even harder at the page and pointedly does. Not. Look. Beneath the faded print of his checked shirt, his bony shoulders go tense.

“Would you please just-”

“No.”

“Just-”

“No.”

“-ask him-”

“No.”

“-on a date with you!”

Glaring furiously under the floppy blond bangs, Steve looks remarkably like an angry kitten and says “No, Sam.”

“I can see your crush on him from outer space, dude,” Sam says, sighing again. “Please. Even if he tells you no, at least you'll have tried.”

“I don't need to ask,” Steve says through gritted teeth. “Because I already know the fucking answer, Sam. Men who look like _that_ beat the shit out of people who look like me. I know you and Peggy don't think so, but I actually do have some sense of self-preservation.” He frowns before erasing and redrawing a few lines with a steadier hand. “Even if he's gay – or pan, or bi – why would he say yes? He could probably bench press like nine of me.”

“Oh, easily,” Sam agrees with a good-natured smile. “But haven't you ever heard of the adage 'opposites attract'?”

“Honestly, Sam?” Steve shrugs. “I literally don't even know if he speaks English.”

Because they were both behaving like teenage boys rather than two grown ass men approaching their thirties, they both turned to glance over at the bar. More specifically, at the man standing behind it, unloading glasses from the under-counter washer with a speed and grace that seemed nearly inhuman.

Steve – because again, he was not a twenty-seven-year-old professional – sighs longingly.

Natasha, their waitress/hostess/growing acquaintance pours drinks for people waiting at the bar, batting her eyelashes and tossing her head to distract them from the scowling, glaring mass of muscles who moves around and behind her like a shadow. Occasionally, she would chatter at him in... Russian, probably, since most of the menu came from the Soviet Bloc. Steve had noticed one common word in her conversation that he assumed was probably the man's name: Yasha.

'Yasha' – the aforementioned shadow – spoke to only Natasha and only in Russian. He didn't wait the tables with her, but he did serve drinks or bring meals along with mixing drinks, cooking, and keeping a pale, glaring eye on the room in general. Sometimes, if a particular customer or staff member was badly behaved enough, he also dragged people forcibly out of the restaurant. Steve had witnessed that all of once but had been...impressed by the sight. ( ** _“Dude, did you just fucking swoon? No, I swear to god, Tony, he just goddamn swooned.”_** )

Steve grimaces slightly at that reminder. Luckily, Tony was only on the phone rather than physically present for that, or he would've made sure Steve's secret crush was common public knowledge by the time the night was over. Honestly, he was surprised the man hadn't barged into their private hiding space yet. He glances around, but sadly cannot find any wood to knock on.

Sam, working on the line art for Scarlet Witch, glances up and smirks. “He's coming this way.”

The sensation Steve experiences is terrible, thrilling, and horrifying all at once. Every inch of exposed skin has millions of nerve endings that light up like a Christmas tree. He can feel the flush of red suffusing his cheeks. He burns – blood, bone, and flesh. The smell of pelmeni wafts over the table and Steve feels dizzy as Yasha leans over, setting the plates down carefully around their sketchpads, polite but without any hint of good humor as usual. “ _Spasibo_ ,” Steve makes himself choke out bravely.

Natasha taught him that one, after he asked her. She likes Sam and Steve, which definitely feels like a good sign.

Yasha, dark hair hanging in his eyes, raises a brow at him. Just as Steve thinks he may spontaneously combust, he tips his head slightly, grunting “ _Na zdorov'je_.”

He walks away, and Steve can finally exhale. “Dear sweet Jesus.”

Low, and with both amusement and concern, Sam asks “Are you about to faint?”

“No. Yes.” Steve gulps, heart skipping in his chest. “Maybe.” He yanks out the inhaler from his jacket pocket and pushes the compressor, sucking in a lungful of the medication.

Sam watches, concerned but calm. “You good?”

“Yeah, better,” he nods. He scrubs a hand over his face. “Seriously. Sam, please, let's stop talking about this. This is exactly why this would never work. Never mind the asthma, my heart goes crazy just having him look me in the eye.”

His friend nods more contritely. “Got the Widow's final looks drawn up yet?”

Steve scowls. “No. She's just not coming to me, Sam. Nothing I draw fits. I have Spider-Man done, though.”

Sam sips his Russian tea and laughs. “Better you than me, man. I don't do spiders.”

“Just you wait till I get you back for this Captain America bullshit you pulled on me. You think you're real cute over there – just remember that revenge is best served cold.”

Sam rubs his hands together like a Bond villain. “I look forward to your next move, sir.”

\- - -

 _“Yasha, go deliver the pelmeni to Mr. Cute Butt over in the corner,”_ Natasha calls from the bar.

Bucky scowls at her. _“If you think that will miraculously change my mind, think again, Natasha.”_

 _“See it as doing you a favor,”_ she says with a shrug and sly wink. _“If you won't ask him out, you can at least ogle him up close and personal. Now go – it's been absolutely disgusting watching you pine for him from afar.”_

The scowl deepens to a glare. _“I don't pine. Clint's taken you to too many rom-coms – you're becoming delusional now.”_

 _“Pelmeni. Cute boy. Now.”_ Natasha snaps.

Inwardly sighing, Bucky fetches his tray and the dumplings, watching the two men at the corner table notice his approach. The blond – Mr. Cute Butt – suddenly stiffens as Bucky draws up to the table and sets down their dinner, taking care to steer clear of the papers, and trying to keep his left arm away from the light. Duty done, he is going to make his swift exist to hide in the kitchen until they left, or the closing staff pissed him off, whichever came first. He is wearing one of Bucky's favorite shirts today. It's the same blue as his wide, lovely eyes and shows teasing flashes of delicate collar bones that make him salivate like a dumb fucking animal. Christ.

 _“Spasibo,”_ Mr. – the blond says carefully, but with adequate pronunciation, glancing at him through his long, long lashes.

The word – though just one single word – sounds so cautiously studied that for a moment, Bucky was suddenly caught off guard, brow raising before he caught a hold of himself enough to mutter a quick _“Na zdorov'je.”_

As he came back to the bar, there was a smirk on Nat's face that made Bucky want to choke her. With the metal arm. _“You're so fucking clever over there, aren't you? What, you're teaching him Russian now? You know he and his friend are probably just trying to get into your pants.”_

 _“Nope,”_ she replies tartly. _“He said he wanted to know how he should thank you, make sure you'd understand him. So, I taught him.”_

He feels heat on the back of his neck, an uncomfortable flush that makes him snap _“That's a likely story!”_ before stalking back to the kitchens.

\- - -

“I've finished last looks on Cap. Got anything on Black Widow?” Sam asks, looking up from his sour cream-smeared plate.

Steve gives a dissatisfied snort before flipping over his sketchbook to show a series of different Black Widows in profile. All of them depict their assassin femme fatale with a languid, sly expression – relaxed, confident, and deadly. From Steve's expression, he wasn't happy with any of the versions.

Sam scratches his cheek with the edge of a thumbnail. “Why don't you ask Natasha if she'll be your model on the Black Widow design?”

As Steve is in the middle of finishing his coffee, he of course promptly chokes and nearly spits up over his sketchpad. “What?”

“C'mon, man – we're already using Tony for the Iron Man designs. And of course, there's Captain America-”

“Which you did not ask my permission for-”

“But they loved the preview.” Sam says with a big shit-eating grin. “So, hate it or not Steve, you're the Star-Spangled Man. Just ask her – she already knows we spend all day here for work. You're not happy with anything we've tried – just ask if she'll sit for you. The worst she can do is say no, man. But we need a design for her _now_. Her premiere with Cap is in the very next issue.”

“I know, I know,” Steve hisses. “I'll ask, okay. Just, next time we talk to her, I'll ask. Why the hell are you so pushy today?”

“I'm taking up the slack while you're over there moping,” Sam snarks. “Usually, you're the slave-driver between us, so you don't notice it.”

Finishing his drink, Sam goes off to meet Riley for Netflix and chill (' _no, dude, that is not a weird code for something. I'm wearing sweatpants immediately and if I have to leave the couch in the next six hours, I will hurt someone_ '), leaving Steve to moon over the incident with Yasha earlier. He shouldn't – it brought that tingling, blotchy blush right back to his face, which was really not a good look on him.

But because he has shitty luck that means Natasha chooses one of those moments to stop back by the table. “Still doing all right over here?” she asks sweetly, with a small smile that seems horribly knowing. “I saw you putting my lessons to good use.”

“Yes, um...he wasn't offended, was he?” Oh god, he could feel it...the blotchy blushing arrived.

“No,” Natasha says with a twinkle in her green eyes. “He replied with 'you're welcome', in case you missed that part. He was probably more surprised than anything. Most people don't have the guts to talk to him in any language, you know.”

“Uh, well, he doesn't seem that bad,” Steve stammers lamely. “And he's really fond of you...I think?”

“He is,” she says graciously. “It can be a little hard for other people to notice sometimes. He's such a big softy, but it's pretty difficult for him to show it off.”

Oh, Steve has a sudden, terrible realization. _Oh, fuck me, they're together_. _Why the hell didn't I think of that before? I was too busy staring at Yasha's ass_. Despite the lump sitting in his throat, Steve makes himself croak “Can I ask you for another favor, Natasha?”

“You can ask,” she says, tilting her head and giving him a strange look. “What do you need?”

“Sam and I are artists, you already know that. We're setting up characters for this story-line we pitched. I'd like to ask if you'd be my character model for a female superhero called 'Black Widow'?”

“Black Widow?" There is an odd smile that flashes over Natasha's features. "Alright, tell me more.”

\- - -

“I talked to your favorite customer after my shift ended,” she says idly, chewing down an apple with deliberate slowness.

“ _Natalia_ ,” Bucky sighs, sounding exhausting. “If I'd have known you were such a meddling old housewife-”

“You still would have moved in,” she states with a merciless shrug. “Face it, James. You'd have missed Clint and you need someone awake enough in the morning to hand you a cup of coffee.”

“Everybody fuckin' misses me,” Clint says loudly, stomping up the back stairwell. “And I would love some coffee, do we have any?”

Lucky, asleep at Bucky's feet, is awake in an instant to assault him at the kitchen door. Dryly, Bucky says “It's ten o'clock at night.”

“Who's a good pizza dog? You hush your devil tongue, Barnes. It's always time for coffee,” Clint says, stealing a slice of apple from Nat's plate and chewing loudly. They watch him eat with expressions of mixed disgust and affection. “Do we have coffee?”

“We have coffee-” Nat says, just to see him perk up. “But it's all in the cupboards, _ptichka_.”

Clint spends a good ten minutes of watery-eyed theatrical caterwauling before Bucky and Nat break down into helpless laughter and dinner can then officially begin.

“So, what's this I heard about dreamy customers?” Clint asks between bites of pasta. “Nat, are you shilling the patrons into believing you're a former Bond girl again?”

“Ugh, chew with your mouth _closed_ ,” she scolds in exasperation. “And James has a crush on one of the regulars.”

“Ooh,” Clint says, because he is actually a teenager girl in disguise as a decorated veteran of special forces.

“Can we please just...not?” Bucky grumbles. “For fuck's sake, you guys – my own ma wasn't as bad as the two'a you.”

Natasha, of course, ignores him and leans toward Clint, catching his beer before he knocks it off the table without even blinking. “He's an artist. Blonde. Big blue eyes. Glasses.” Bucky scowls from across the salad, mouthing 'traitor' at her. She smirks. “ _Tiny_ little thing. Only a bit taller than me, but nearly twenty pounds lighter.”

Clint's own green eyes shimmer with delight at this description. “Wow, that's exactly your type, Barnes. Please tell me we've got hot blonde's number. Or dick measurements, but I assume we're taking this slowly, right?”

“No,” Nat clucks her disapproval. “Because James is still refusing to speak English in the restaurant. Though hot guy – whose name is _Steve_ , in case you were curious, James – has asked me to teach him how to say thank you and a few other basics.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” Clint says, nodding happily. “Get him all comfortable with innocent little Natasha and then big bad Barnes comes on! We could make this work...”

Bucky, who is now contemplating pouring the reminder of the wine into his mouth to escape this conversation, settles for face-planting into the hardwood dining table and groans “Please stop this weird thing where you act like you're with me in some kind of three-way relationship and somehow also my parents at the same time. Can you do that for me? That one, teensy favor?”

“Like...I thought that's exactly what this was?” Clint says, face scrunching with confusion. “Without the fucking? Because you're not a huge fan of girls and I'm not really into dick as a rule, but I'm willing to give it a shot if you've changed your mind as long as Nat's cool-”

“No,” she says immediately. “Even if you were James' type and you both managed to discover new parts of the Kinsey scale, I'm sorry James, but I would never fuck you.”

Bucky makes a face of disgust. “Oh, god, Clint, no way. Oh, Christ. That-that's...ugh.”

“Do us all a favor,” she tells Clint. “Stop talking.”

“I'm just saying, you are basically in this marriage, Barnes. All of us are ride or die over here. Till death or tax-day do we part. All we need is a hot little blonde to keep you warm at night.” By the end of the last sentence, Clint is laughing so hard he can barely speak, but manages to catch his breath. “But seriously, how hot is he? What are we talking, like an eight? The rare ten?”

Nat sniffs. “That's extremely derogatory. But...I'd say an eight and a half. Full nine on a good day when he's had enough sleep and isn't panicking about deadlines.”

Bucky, before he could stop himself, blurts into the hardwood “Easily a ten. A full smile can take it up to twelve.”

“Wow.” Clint and Natasha exchanged looks over Bucky's shoulder.

Since the 'accident' that had gotten him honorably discharged, Bucky hadn't expressed much interest in a partner beyond 'yeah, I guess he's pretty cute', and they both knew that the only action he got was from his hand.

**_(‘I bet it's the right one too, he's so freaked out about the goddamn prosthetic. But seriously, Nat. It's been nearly three years. I don't think I really need to tell you that's not normal.'_ **

**_'Impotence is personal and humiliating and James doesn't need you needling him about his masturbatory habits. For fuck's sake, Clint!'_ **

**_'I'm not, I'm not, I swear! I asked if he felt like meeting someone and... I dunno. We started talking about it. The aforementioned habits, I mean. He says it's exhausting and doesn't feel worth it.'_ **

**_'I can't deny that I'm starting to get worried, Clint.' Natasha looked as close to chewing her nails as she ever got._ **

**_'About erectile dysfunction? That's one marital problem I don't think we need to worry about, honey.' At the look on his wife's face, he immediately added 'Kidding, I'm kidding. But I don't feel comfortable tattling to Dr. Banner about something like this, Nat.'_ **

**_'I'm not really THAT concerned about whether James' dick functions or not, but the fact that he’s not interested is a very noticeable symptom of a much larger issue. I don't want to pretend this isn't a problem until he slips into another episode. If they try to put him back into that clinic, it'll be over my dead body! That asshole doctor is half the reason it got so bad to begin with!' she raged, then took a deep breath. 'I'll let this go for now, but if he starts picking at his food and forgetting meals again, we're calling Dr. Banner.'_ **

**_'I honestly think it's more of a body image issue.' But Clint grew up on a farm in Iowa. He knows what it means when an animal goes off its feed and won't eat anymore. 'But if he stops eating, we'll do whatever it takes. I promise')_ **

For that reason alone, he knows that Natasha's natural inclination is to start getting involved. He personally feels like the admission alone was progress, but she is worried he isn't getting enough human connection (apart from the two of them, of course).

Clint is slightly more hopeful. After all, he'd actually answered hot guy when he spoke to him in Russian. A year ago, he probably would have snarled like an angry bear and stomped off. The wreck he was in after the first year he and Nat had been back convinced Clint that any progress at this point is good. He already knew he'd spend his life regretting the ten months Bucky was recovering by himself after his discharge while he finished off his own enlistment. By the time Clint returned to Brooklyn, the sergeant was barely a shell of himself. It had taken Nat an additional four months after that to finish hers, and he'd spent them trying to both prepare her for the situation back home and not worry her to distraction while still working behind enemy lines.

He didn't like to think of that time – a time when Bucky barely trusted anything, but trusted him implicitly, like a child or an animal. Loud noises had frightened him, and bright lights had angered him –

“Movie, my loving family?!” he bellows from the living room.

“Beer!” calls the female voice.

“Popcorn,” rumbles the male.

He grins, moving around the living room. Since he was the MC of the cinema, he was picking the film. “Aha! A classic.”

Natasha takes one look at the starting screen and says “What are you? Five?”

“Six and a half,” Clint says smugly, patting the couch cushions. “Now let's watch a tale of murder, betrayal, and revenge.”

“It's _The Lion King_ , Barton,” Bucky says with smirk, carrying in the popcorn. “Not a BBC period drama.”

“Whatever, this is better. Just sit down and shut up so I can press play.”

As per usual, Clint and Bucky sit side by side on the couch while Natasha sits down in the nearby armchair, her feet in Clint's lap. Nearing the end of 'The Circle of Life', Bucky starts chuckling, a handful of popcorn still clutched in his hand. Natasha's lips curve up instinctively at the sound. “What's funny? Share with the class.”

Still giggling, he gestures around the living room. Lucky is snoozing on the rug in front of the television, utterly destitute without his pizza. Clint was massaging Natasha's arches and calves while she sipped her beer and Bucky, half-sleep, was curled up against his side with his cheek resting on his shoulder. “Three-way relationship.”

Clint grins. “Someone has to cuddle with me, _kozel_ – the piranha I married sure as hell won't.”

Nat wrinkles her nose. “I love you both very much but you're a pair of gross, sweaty heat machines so _no._ It's bad enough that I'm forced into sharing a bed with one of you. You can both stay over there where you won't sweat all over me.”

“Gross, sweaty heat machines? Jesus Christ that sounds like the worst porn title ever made!” Bucky now has actual tears of laughter in his eyes, giggling into Clint's shoulder, who is at this point howling.

Gulping for air, Clint bats his eyes and moans “Oh, Bucky, you sweaty heat machine!”

Even Natasha can't contain herself, especially when Bucky places a seductive hand on the other man's thigh and growls “Clint, you're the only man gross enough for me!”

Clint yelps as Bucky nuzzles and scrapes him with five o'clock shadow. “Jesus – fuck, Barnes, that tickles! Stop, stop!” Which just sends Natasha into whole new peals of laughter. “What the hell, _kozel?!_ I don't need people asking why I got beard burn all over my face!”

Bucky snickers. “You already have it all over your neck from this morning.”

“From every morning,” Nat corrects, grinning. “James, you're the only person I know who think beard rash is an acceptable form of greeting. The kitchen staff already think you and I are having a torrid affair.”

“Don't pretend you don't think it's funny, Tasha,” Clint accuses. “The least you could do is be a gentleman and slip me a little tongue, Barnes. Make an honest man of me!”

“I mean, that's not _the least_ I could do, but I sure as fuck ain't doing it to you, Barton.”

Clint smirks as he takes in their laughter, their easy relaxed poses. _Mission accomplished. A+, Barton._

\- - -

Clint sits on a stool at the kitchen island, eating strawberry yogurt straight from the tub and watching in fascinated hunger as Bucky works at the table in front of him. It was Sunday, which means no work, not for any of them. The restaurant was closed Sundays and Mondays, so they were hands down his favorite part of the week – partially because Bucky would take the time to make breakfast. Not like their slapped together dinners or the leftovers from downstairs they ate during the week – a real, massive breakfast with all the works.

The smell of bacon, cheese, and peppers filled the air, coming from the frittata in the oven. At the table, Bucky sprinkles a cinnamon and sugar mixture over the rectangle of dough and begins rolling it up at one end. “Barton, Christ all mighty, put your tongue back in your mouth,” he drawls. “You're getting me all hot and bothered here.”

“Barnes,” Clint says seriously. “I _one hundred percent mean it_ when I say I've never sucked a dick in my life and I would still suck your dick for those. No, no, that doesn't count I actually like you – I would suck _Stark's_ dick for those, and just hearing that man talk makes me want to shoot him.”

“What a coincidence, that makes two of us,” Bucky mutters, carefully pinching the top of the edges of the dough together. “The shooting, not the fellatio. Hell, I think if sex with Stark was my only other option, I'd shoot myself first. There's no point in sleeping with someone already that in love with themselves. Where's Nat?”

“You tell me,” he answers thickly around a mouthful of yogurt, pointing to a paper tacked to fridge. “You know it all looks like gibberish to me.”

Bucky switches the frittata with the first batch of cinnamon rolls and slaps Clint's hand away from the pan. Clint, while every bit as conversationally fluent as he and Nat at this point, is utterly hopeless at written Russian. Bucky frowns before reading for the second, and then the third and fourth time. “Yeah I saw that. She says she's going to pick up a... bunny rabbit?...but she'll be back for breakfast. Huh. That can't be right.”

“Getting rusty there, old man?” Clint says slyly.

Bucky sniffs. “I am five years younger than you. Watch your mouth, _Pops_.”

“Boys, I'm home! Please be wearing all your clothing and in the manner intended by the manufacturer!” The sound of two pairs of shoes came from the back stairwell. “And please let that be cinnamon rolls!”

“No promises!” Clint hollers back. “But yes to the cinnamon rolls! Whoever you brought with you can fight me to the death for them!”

“For cinnamon rolls, I might,” a deep voice chuckles. Clint has just enough time to see the terror flash over Bucky's face before he turns away and the door opens, revealing a man about Natasha's age whose voice was suited more to a man about...three times his size.

Blonde. Big blue eyes. Glasses. Tiny.

He glances back at Bucky, who was staring fixedly at his task of frying the hash browns. _Oh Natasha, you clever little witch._

 _“Zaichik?”_ Bucky demands as Natasha comes over to nudge him with her hip. _“Really, Natasha? A fucking bunny?”_

The redhead raises a brow before replying _“Tell me you honestly don't wanna put him on your lap and stroke him, kozel.”_

_“Natalia.”_

The word was snarled so harshly that all three of the other adults in the room flinch. Clint winces. The last time he'd heard that tone was immediately prior to Bucky losing an arm, but back then it was “You move _when I fucking say move_ and not _a second_ before that, you hear me?”

Realizing that his sudden rage had spooked everyone, Bucky says _“Please, Natasha. I've already frightened him. Don't do this.”_

Before Barnes' self-esteem could sink into the basement, Clint loudly clears his throat and steps forward to shake Steve's hand. “Hi, I'm Clint Barton. You've probably already met my roommates, the two extremely rude people who speak so that other people in the room can't understand them.”

Steve chuckles, full lips curving into crooked little half-smile. He's slender and almost pretty, with long lashes and golden hair.  _Barnes, you're a sad shit, but you've got some great taste._ “Steve Rogers. That's alright – I'm starting to find it kind of soothing. Do they usually spend all their time scowling and arguing with each other?”

“No?” Clint answers in honest confusion, glancing over at his housemates. “But they do spend a lot of time yelling at me, so...”

“Oh, you speak Russian, too?” Steve asks, clearly interested.

“English, Russian, and ASL, plus the basics in a handful of others,” Clint says, with a careless wave of the hand.

Steve, to their surprise, lights up at this and flings his hands up eagerly. //You know sign?//

//Yeah// Clint signs back, amazed. //I got into an accident as a kid and lost most of my hearing. Usually use aids nowadays, though. Did you take ASL as a language requirement?//

What Steve didn't know, and Clint certainly did was that Bucky and Natasha also knew sign – though admittedly, they were better with military or combat-specific terms. But Steve had no way of knowing that the other people in the room could understand the basics of everything he was saying. //Oh, I was born with multiple defects and one of the side effects was hearing loss. Got surgery to fix it, but I still enjoy being able to sign.//

//Birth defects?// Clint asked, looking concerned. //You look really healthy though, dude.//

That actually got a loud laugh out of Steve. //Wow that is definitely not what most people say.//

Clint, who was well used to Natasha and Bucky feigning ignorance for the sake of intel, decides to speak for all of them. //Yeah what do they say?//

//Hm...mostly something along the lines of 'get that kid a sandwich, he's making me cry'.// Steve scoffs. //Like I'm skinny on purpose or something.// He shrugs and turns to Natasha. “Sorry, it's just that I don't meet a lot of people who can sign. Peggy knows a bit, but she definitely isn't as good as you.”

Nat, like a bloodhound, smiles brightly and asks “Oh, that's your hot girlfriend, right?”

Steve smiles widely, guileless. Bucky's stomach aches. “Hot ex-girlfriend,” he reminds. “After a few months, we drove each other so crazy we realized we were better off being friends. I'm single and likely to stay that way.”

Bucky, despite having zero hopes or expectations, feels his heart sink. _Fuck, he's probably straight._ Through a haze, he hears Nat say “Oh, I don't know about that. Handsome, sweet thing like you? Surprised you're single.”

Despite Nat's intentionally flirtatious opening, Steve does not rise to the bait. “They're not lining up at the door, yet.” She watches his eyes drift over to Bucky, who is pulling the rolls out of the oven and takes the hash browns off the stove. “So are we fighting to the death for cinnamon rolls, because I will do it. Gladiator arena, monopoly, arm wrestle – I will do it.”

“As entertaining as that would be,” Clint chuckles. “No. I was just telling kozel that his are the best – I kid you not – the fucking _best_ cinnamon rolls in Brooklyn.”

“He bakes?” Steve asks, brows raised.

“Like an Olympic snowboarder,” Clint says wisely.

“Clint they might be special, but they aren't _that_ special,” Natasha scolds.

“Huh, I've only had it in chocolate. And lollipops, once.”

They both turned to stare at Steve – wholesome-looking, clean cut Steve with his button-ups and pressed slacks, who had apparently consumed edible cannabis. “What?” he says, licking his lips sheepishly. “I have chronic medical conditions!”

“Sure,” he says wickedly. Because he was facing Steve, he could see when his attention flickered when Nat spoke to Bucky.

_“Don't be mad at me, kozel. He's here to sketch me and get more lessons in Russian.”_

_“Fine,”_ he grunted _“but keep 'zaichik' in the common areas and leave me be, Natasha.”_

“Um, maybe this is stupid,” Steve says quietly to Clint. “But earlier, he called her 'Natalia'. But I thought her name is Natasha...?”

“Oh, in Russia, they're crazy-fond of nicknames,” he explained. “Natalia would be her real, proper first name – like Natalie, in English – the kind she would use on official paperwork. But she doesn't care for it much, so she prefers 'Natasha', which is a common nickname. If you were closer friends, you might call her _Tasha_ or _Natashenka_. Or you can make up your own. Since your name is Steve, in Russian that would be...”

“ _Stepan_. Which can be shortened to _Styopa_ ,” Natasha said, smiling so widely her dimples flashed. “Or...hm... _Stepushka_. It's kind of like calling you Stevie instead of instead of Steve. Like _Yasha_ , which is short for _Yakov. Yakov_ is like the English version of Jacob or James, so _Yasha_ is more like Jamie, Jimmy, or Jake.”

Plating the last of the food, Bucky says _“You ever call me Jimmy and I will break your fucking fingers, Natasha.”_

“Uh, he didn't sound very pleased,” Steve says, with wide-eyed attention to the sergeant. “What did he just say?”

“Death threats, the usual,” she answers placidly, leading him into the dining room. “As Clint said, if you're more familiar with someone and you'd like to show a warmer degree of affection, you can also use other nicknames. Isn't that right – _medvezhonok_?”

Sitting at the head of the table, Bucky glances at Natasha before pointedly flipping her the bird. _“Don't tell him about that, it's bad enough that you two won't let me live it down.”_

 _“Don't worry, kozel. I'll tell him the cooler explanation for you,”_ Clint assures with a laugh.

“What's – what's mez...mez...”

“ _Med-vezh-onok_ ,” Nat repeats helpfully. “Remember when I told you that Yasha is really just a great big softie?”

Steve glances over at Bucky, who is using all of his ops training to keep his facial expressions under control because he is so fucking embarrassed he thinks he may burst into flames. He is going to break Natasha's fingers after all.

Clint has a huge grin on his face. “Well, what do you cuddle at night?”

Steve looks confused. “A pillow?”

“Oh, dude, no, that's just sad,” Clint says, shaking his head. Bucky bites down on his inner cheek to block a bark of laughter.

“Most children have a special toy for that,” Nat says pointedly.

“A... a teddy bear?” he guesses tentatively. At their grins, he says “Oh my god, you actually call him 'teddy bear'?”

“Hey, I wouldn’t knock it. The boogieman himself wouldn't dare come for you with him cuddled up next to you,” Clint chuckles, remembering Dugan's words fondly – though he'd been howling with laughter at the time. Judging by the twitch of his mouth, Bucky recalls that conversation, too. Casually, Clint adds “Of course, we didn't start calling him that officially until he killed the bear with his pocket knife.”

At Steve's horrified expression, Natasha explains “While back in Russia, we ended up in the woods, camped out by ourselves when an angry bear decided he didn't like us trying to sleep there. After yelling his head off, Yasha fought back and eventually killed it.”

Bucky noted that she did not mention that they were in Russia illegally, that they were camped out to hide from a gang of angry Serbians, that Barton's ribs were cracked, or that he himself had been trying to perform minor field surgery on her when the bear had shown up.

“That's...incredibly brave,” Steve says quietly. “Stupid, but brave.”

Clint laughs while working to shove as much food in his mouth as possible. _“Oh, he's got your number, kozel. 'Stupid but Brave' could be the title of your biography.”_

 _“Piss off and climb a tree, Barton,”_ Clint manages to coax a full smile from him. _“You already claimed 'Dumbest Sniper in America'.”_

“What's ' _kozel_ '?” Natasha could see Steve drinking in that smile, the one that showed off James' full mouth, increased the draw of cheekbones, and softened those big grey eyes. A clever move on Clint's part, to needle James into humor – it was nearly impossible to resist and they both knew it. “I've heard you say that several times.”

 _“You probably shouldn't teach him to call me that,”_ Bucky says, but his eyes are still dancing with mirth. Natasha is certain he would be more guarded if he knew how captivating it is, how hard it is to look away from.

 _“Half the fun of learning a new language is all the dirty words!”_ Clint argues. _“Besides, it's such a great inside joke.”_

_“You're not that clever, ptichka. We both know it was Natashenka’s doing.”_

“It has multiple meanings.” Natasha says smoothly. “It can be used to refer to a goat, a sow-”

“Or a buck,” Clint says, with a large, strange grin. “But in this case, it's because it's another word for a bear, but it also means 'asshole' or 'motherfucker'.”

“Which is why,” Natasha snaps, glaring at him for his crudeness. “You shouldn't use it unless you're prepared to be punched in the face immediately afterwards.”

At that, Clint nods “B-Yasha knows that we mean it as a joke... that it’s… whatsit called – affectionate? I guess – but I wouldn't say it to anyone else unless I had a great exit strategy planned.”

The four of them finish eating in a comfortable silence. Bucky quickly escapes back into his room –Natasha is disappointed but not surprised – and Clint gamely tackles the dishes and clean up. Natasha leads Steve through to the living room, well-lit from the morning sun streaming in through the bay window taking up the whole eastern wall. A one-eyed golden retriever follows them, sensing a new guest.

“Hey, hey,” the redhead mutters. “Move, pizza dog.”

“Pizza dog?” Steve repeats bemused.

“Eh, yeah, his real name is actually Lucky. He's Clint's.” She snorts. “We're safe but if there's pizza around, he will find a way to take it from you.” Despite this, she gives the retriever a friendly scratch behind the ear. “So, where would you like me?”

“Just sit and sort of do whatever you like. I want it to look natural, so feel free to do whatever you normally do.”

\- - -

While not exactly pleased that he's given up his secret hiding place up to Sam, Steve had accepted it as inevitable and consoled himself with the assurance that they did get quite a lot of work done at _The Red Star._ He is more reluctant when he finally caves to Peggy's demands, not in the least because she is uncannily insightful, and Steve can't help but suspect that she'll know what’s going on the instant she sees his massive, dark haired Russian crush. Then there's also the fact that while they are unquestionably friends now, she is still his ex, and he really doesn't want Peggy to witness firsthand his infatuation with yet another terrifying brunette who is insanely out of his league.

He isn't certain if he's hoping to get it over with quickly or avoid it altogether, but when he and Peggy walk through the doors, Natasha greets them warmly, and already he can feel Peggy studying him. It's a Monday, and too late for the lunch rush, so the restaurant floor around them is quiet and there is nothing to distract her from Natasha asking “Who's your stunning friend, Steve? You're usually all work and no play when I see you.”

“Natasha, this is Peggy, my friend from London-”

“Margaret Carter,” Peggy says with a cool smile. “Pleased to meet you.”

“It's nice to meet any friend of Steve's!” Natasha's smile is bright, but her eyes are cautious, assessing. “I'm Natalia Romanova. Welcome to the _Red Star_.”

They order drinks and then food, and everything is completely normal. The meal is nearly over, and Steve is close to breathing a sigh of relief – or possibly disappointment – when it happens.

Yasha comes out through the kitchen and he feels his eyes drawn away by reflex, a magnetic pull that Steve absolutely cannot resist. He knows that he is being obvious, but he honestly can't help it and when Peggy breaths “Oh my” in _that_ tone, he knows that he's been caught. “Steven. Grant. Rogers.”

“I _know_ ,” he hisses miserably. “Oh god I know, please don't say it.”

“You have fantastic taste, Rogers,” she murmurs, both brows raised high. “But bloody hell, the glare on that man. He looks like he's preparing to murder everyone.”

Steve lowers his voice to a whisper “I know. Is it bad that I find that hot? Because I really do find that extremely hot.”

As is the normal order of things, he and Natasha start arguing with each other in Russian. The back and forth ends with Natasha flouncing off with a tart comment and leaving Yasha there, scowling mightily.

“What's his name?”

“Uh...Yasha, I think?”

“You don't know?”

“Well, he doesn't speak English, so...”

“Oh! Well, yes, I suppose that does complicate-”

She stops when a sleazy looking man in a tracksuit barges through the front doors of the restaurant. He zeros right in on Yasha and begins gesturing and snarling threats at him as soon as he sees him. Yasha, on the other hand, seems thoroughly unimpressed and listens with his arms crossed over his chest, the left arm gleaming dull in the lighting. He appears to respond to the display of aggression with the Russian equivalent of “ _Are you done yet, meathead_?”

Tracksuit glares and grunts out more threats. Yasha waves away whatever he's saying like someone might wave off an annoying fly, the metal arm glinting a subtle warning. Normally the man is tensed as a spring, but like this, Steve realizes that he's suddenly calm – relaxed, even.

“Darling, I think your cybernetic caveman is connected to the Russian mob,” Peg whispers. “They're speaking too quickly for my translation level, but Tracksuit seems to believe someone here owes him something.”

“You speak Russian?!”

“Not a whole lot, but it tends to be a valuable skill for my workplace,” Peggy demurs. “Now hush, this isn't as easy as it looks.”

The conversation with Tracksuit seems to come to close when the man points at Yasha and then points at the ceiling of the restaurant with a leer, still speaking. Whatever he says must be unpleasant indeed because Peggy hisses, “Like hell you will!” in a disgusted tone and Yasha looks fucking _furious_. His everyday murderous expression was mere annoyance in comparison.

Steve never would have imagined a man that large could move so damn fast – and he is. He is _really_ fast. And apparently really fucking strong, because with one punch from the right fist, Yasha knocks him out and then holds the unconscious man by the back of the shirt before he can even hit the floor.

“What the hell did he say?!” Steve gasps.

“Tracksuit said he would do some very unpleasant things to your redheaded friend Natasha, which he described in rather graphic detail.” Peggy grimaces. “Most of them were both violent and sexual in nature.”

Looking very calm, Yasha drags Tracksuit out the door by the collar to the curb, flips open a garbage can and drops him inside like a hefty bag.

Upon walking back into the restaurant, he seems to realize that he has gathered an audience. Which Peggy seems to take as a reason to begin applauding, and Steve and a few others join in. He looks uncomfortable, scrubbing a hand over the stubble at his jaw before retreating behind the bar to continue his duties.

Steve is not a stranger to violence. In his relatively short lifetime, he's felt violence, committed it, witnessed it, prevented it, and cleaned up after it. But he's never seen anyone wield it so – he wouldn't say that it was _casually_ , he was starting to think nothing about Yasha could be called casual – but so easily, so calmly. And the fact that he is a little turned on right now is more than a bit disconcerting for him.

To his utter horror, when Yasha stops over and refills their water glasses, Peggy smiles and says _“Privet.”_

Yasha's pale eyes dart between the two of them. _“Privet,”_ he replies, curt. For him this is quite warm and friendly.

That changes a bit when Peggy asks a question in a pleasant tone. It sounds like _“Gee-dra?”_

Yasha's gaze turns narrowed and whatever he says to Peggy in response is said in a hoarse, angry growl that sends chills down his spine.

Steve eyes him. There is nothing friendly about the cold stare he’s giving her. “Peg, what the hell are you doing?!”

But the Englishwoman leans back in her chair and smiles. She looks extremely satisfied by whatever the response was, says something that sounds like _“Zi-shed. Crash-o.”_

Yasha looks at them both, hisses something at Peggy, and walks off the serve the other customers.

“What the hell was that?!”

She settles in comfortably and sips her water glass. “I was mistaken, he isn't with the mob,” she says sweetly. “He's a soldier.”

Steve gapes at her.

“Maybe with him around, you won't get your nose broken so often,” she says thoughtfully.

“I can take care of myself!” he squawks.

Peggy doesn't even seem to hear him. She nods to herself, looking more and more delighted. “God knows you could use an army. Gorgeous caveman has my approval!”

\- - -

“Your husband needs to be more careful about who he's pissing off.” Bucky says, storming through the apartment upstairs.

At Bucky's voice, Natasha lifts her head from the novel she's reading at the kitchen island. Behind her, a pot of chili simmers on the stove. “That's rich coming from you,” she says dryly, taking a sip of her wine and turning a page. “Because god knows that you play so well with others. For example, the man sitting in our trash bins out front. Wanna tell me what that was about?”

“See previous response,” he snaps. “It seems that building he acquired in Bedford-Stuyvesant came with a few strings attached he didn't tell us about. Namely that the portion of the… what did he call them? The ‘bro mafia’ he took it from still hold a grudge about it and want his head. On a silver platter hopefully, but he didn’t seem real picky about the details.”

She frowns. “He said they aren't that sophisticated. Small-time thugs.”

“Whoever they were, they’re skilled enough to find out where Clint’s family lives and threaten them,” Bucky snarls.

Natasha looks surprised. “They actually threatened you?”

The stare he gives her is hard and pointed. Clint calls it part of his 'Dad Face', and that can only mean one thing. “Oh. Oh god, James, please tell me you didn't actually kill him.”

“No,” Bucky says lowly. “But I wanted to. He said he would...well, never mind what he said...”

The book is abandoned on the counter as she goes to him and Bucky pulls her against him. She tries to tell herself that she minds the way he's crushing her ribs, but she really doesn't. He must know it though, because he pets her bright hair and consciously makes the effort to loosen his grip. It happens less and less but there are still times that he forgets that one arm is now much stronger than the other, even if he is now larger overall to keep up with the demands the cybernetics make of his body.

Best shape of his life and he uses it to make sure they clean underneath the fucking ovens properly. Hell, if didn’t have such big black marks on his psyche evals now, he knew Hill would be knocking down their door to get them all back in the game. As it was, Deputy Hill was smart enough to know they’d never return unless they were together, and those days were long gone for them.

“I know you can take care of yourself,” he whispers, anxiety in every line of his body. “Logically, I knew that he was no real threat to you, but...”

Bucky sighs and kisses her temple. She squeezes him tight and confesses “I'd probably be more offended, but I know you'd go just as ape-shit if he was making threats against Clint.”

“Oh, even more ape shit,” he jokes tightly, rubbing her back. “That loser is fucking hopeless. He needs me just so he eats a vegetable every now and then. And don't even get me started on laundry.”

James strokes her back, and she lets him pretend he's the one calming her down. Thinks again that this whole ‘protector of the weak’ routine would be a whole lot more annoying if she didn't know that he doesn't do it because she's small and it's not because she's a woman either – it's because he loves her, and what James loves, James protects. With blood, whenever he thinks it's necessary.

Natasha rests her cheek against his chest to listen to the loud, steady thud of his heart and just breathes in the smell of laundry soap and the faint metallic undertones. In. Out. She knows better than anyone that despite James's outward demeanor, he's got a gigantic heart in there, strong and generous and just a bit sad. She knows exactly how wonderful this heart is and all she wants is someone equally wonderful to take care of it, because she doesn't know where she'd be today without James Buchanan Barnes. “You take good care of us, Mama Bear. But I think we need to call Coulson in on this one.”

He sighs again. “I think you're probably right. But I get dibs on telling him how much his protege is fucking up this whole civilian life thing. Daisy will be thrilled she won that bet.”

“To be fair,” Natasha allows “Fitz-Simmons views all three of us as some kind of Arthurian legend and May hasn't seen any of us since I first returned.”

“Yeah, but I expected better of Bobbi, at least,” he says, forcing a crooked smile. “She should know better than to bet against you.”

Bucky does not mention that his performance had an audience Natasha would find very interesting. He is done publicly embarrassing himself for the day and the less said about the look on Steve’s face the better during that short conversation. How the fuck did Natasha expect him to ask the guy out when every time he was around, Bucky couldn’t manage to behave like a goddamn civilized human being? He still couldn’t untie his tongue enough to speak fucking English around him yet!

And the Englishwoman…hm…

She hadn’t appeared to recognize either himself or Natalia on sight alone so probably not a HYDRA operative and she'd been extremely pleased with the (correct) conclusion that he was a (former) SHIELD agent. The English agent probably either came from the London office or she was new. Either would help to explain why she failed to recognize a tiny stunning redhead and a large angry man with a metal arm who spoke Russian. Daisy had already told them that to people who had known them and seen what they could do, like Fitz and Simmons, they were living legends, but to the newer teams on the east coast and all around eastern Europe, they had become a real-life ghost story, like in a cheap drugstore novel: What Happened to Strike Team Delta.

Bucky thought it was best to leave past ghosts where they lay.

He will never be quite the same man as before, and his life here isn’t perfect, but he is content with his new place in the world.

If he wished for other things...well, life is made for wishing, isn’t it?

None of them are whole but he isn’t certain they ever had been. He’d known in the beginning that they would make a good team, because their broken pieces seem to fit with his own, and with each other’s.

After everything was said and done they were still together, which as far as Bucky is concerned, is all that matters.

\- - -

_Six years ago..._

Hill looks impatient, but studies the paperwork carefully nonetheless. “Are you...dissatisfied with Romanov's work, Agent May?”

“Not at all,” May says in her usual subdued manner. “But it was also my understanding that her placement with me was temporary, on the basis of an initial assessment and basic training only. As her first S.O., I thought I would be giving my opinions on her potential team placement.”

“Ordinarily, that would certainly be true, but Coulson has a habit of adopting strays and she seems the right type,” Hill says, gesturing to her male partner. “Can I then assume that you don't want her on your team?”

“I don't think that would be a good idea,” Coulson says, glancing at May. “We've already got Ward and Fitz-Simmons, and we've just gotten Daisy comfortable working with us. Her psyche evals indicated that Natasha was distrustful of men, especially older men, and Ward...”

“...is an asshole,” May says calmly. “Fitz is a harmless puppy dog, so there wouldn't be any problems there, but I think she sees Coulson as a little _too_ approachable – she gets too suspicious to settle down with him around. If she can't relax and stay calm for the team leader, there's no hope of getting her adjusted to Ward.”

“You're right, I do collect strays,” Coulson admits fairly. “And that's why I want to do right by her. If I had months to spend with her by myself, getting her to warm up more and earning her trust, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I honestly feel that our team is too large and Natasha already too jaded to expect her to adjust well to it. I think she'd find it unsettling and stressful and that's not fair to her.”

Hill nods in consideration. “She is going to need to lower her suspicion around men, even if I sympathize with her view point. Fury's SHIELD is more gender inclusive, but our ranks are still two-thirds male and there isn't a single team on active duty that's female only.”

“Oh, it's definitely something she needs to train herself out of,” May interjects. “I agree with Phil; a small team would be best. No matter who she's with, they are going to have to walk a very fine line. I'd also recommend she spend some time with Bobbi – she'd excel at undercover ops.”

Coulson nods his agreement. “Enough distance to give her room to find her space in the team, but always watching closely enough to know when she struggles. And this probably goes without saying because I know you'd never keep on an agent you even suspected of this, but if they venture into sexual harassment with her, we can consider her lost forever.”

Hill hums thoughtfully, reviewing a mental list. “Strike Team Gamma? Leader – John Zachary Garrett. They're down a team member with Ward transferring over to you on Team Theta.”

“Garrett is a good leader,” May says softly. “But he has a heavy hand. And for Ward that was obviously a pretty good fit-”

“-but Natasha's had enough men with heavy hands in her life.” Coulson says firmly.

“And he's a bit...loud.” May finishes.

“If that's your answer, I only have one other team I'd consider her for,” Hill says. “Though I'd trust your opinion on them more than anyone's. But they really could use a close-range specialist.”

“Who?”

“Strike Team Delta.”

“Barnes and Barton?” May says, surprised. “You wanna put her in the frat house?”

“Phil trained Barton himself.” Hill points out, and then to Coulson: “If you say he's a good fit, I'm more than happy to believe your word.”

“Oh, it’s never Barton I would worry over. He's as good as gold, but I've never actually met Barnes in person,” he admits. “I've heard he's an excellent shot – almost as good as Clint is. I agree that a more close-range specialist could have a place with them. Can I have a look at his file? Just the basic personnel, I don't need anything classified.”

“I know that you’re sold on Barton but I’m not,” May argues. “People have a type and Romanov is absolutely Barton’s type. Independent, headstrong, capable of snapping his neck…sound like someone else we know, Coulson?”

“Have you heard his interview after he and Bobbi split up? He said ‘People talk about love like it’s an arrow you get hit with, that just gets pulled out one day. I ain’t like that. I loved Bobbi, and part of me always will. Maybe one day we’ll forget why we stopped being  _in_  love, but she’s still my friend, I still like her, and I still admire what she can do’. People make jokes about what a human disaster Barton is, but when did a man ever sound that mature? I’m sure he would be attracted to her, but Clint knows his type as well as you do, and he knows better than to make advances on a dangerous, high-strung woman unless she’s making advances first.”

“Here’s the basic profiles I have for Barnes,” Hill says, passing him the file. “Regarding Barton: he wouldn’t have made it this long in our business without some degree of finesse. Although I personally wish that finesse would be in his skills at debriefing interviews, I’ve never had a personnel complaint regarding his behavior.”

 **Name: Barnes, James Buchanan “Bucky”**  
**Date of Birth: March 10th, 1986**  
**Birthplace: Constanta, Constanta, Romania**  
**Current Residence: Brooklyn, New York City, New York**  
**Height: 6’0”**  
**Weight: 180**  
**Hair: Brown**  
**Eyes: Grey**  
**Race: Caucasian**  
**Blood Type: B+**  
**Medical Codes: N/A**  
**Last Employment: US Army Sergeant**  
**Education History Basic: HS Diploma – 3.89 GPA**  
**Secondary Education: BLA – Russian Language, History, and Literature**  
**Other Skills: speaks Romanian and English (primary languages), Russian (secondary language), French, Italian, Greek, and Korean (conversational)**  
**Year of Intake: 2007**

 **Training Officer: Agent Gabriel Jones, Head of Intake (Manhattan Office)**  
**Notes: Excellent scores on the range and in hand to hand, good blending skills during recon. Barnes is comfortable with assorted acts of violence and displays little or no remorse for acts committed in the line of duty. Unknown if this is a result of his military service or exposure to domestic violence at a young age ( _see eval: George & Winifred Barnes_). This would normally be concerning to me, but he also shows very pro-social behaviors and has a markedly strong drive to protect and provide for those he views as needing care ( _see eval: Rebecca Proctor_ ). Previous CO (Lt. Timothy Dugan) in his Army unit referred to him as “Mama Bear” for these tendencies. I recommend a period with another more experienced agent so he can build better skills and techniques in espionage as he would be a good intel operative, and any leader wishing to take advantage of the caretaking instincts should stick to a smaller team size to avoid letting him burn himself out. Identifies openly as a homosexual – may cause conflict for hostile teammates. No assignment restrictions.**

 **_Gabe Jones, Level 8 Agent_ **  
**_September 12, 2007_**  
**_SHIELD, U.S. Division, Manhattan_ **

“Hm, looks like Barnes must have been one of Gabe’s last junior agents,” Coulson murmurs, glancing at the signature.

“The very last, in fact,” Hill confirms. “Retired a few months after Barnes was assigned to lead a partnership on Delta with Barton.”

“Barnes is team leader?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” May asks, following his line of thought. “Barton has four more years of service under his belt. Human disaster aside, I also have to agree with Phil’s assessment – he’s a professional where it counts.”

“Barton has said, and I quote, ‘ _Life is so much easier when I’m not the one standing in front of the fan whenever the shit hits_ ’,” Hill says, with her brows perfectly arched. “Between the two of them I believe they decided that Barnes was the one more comfortable handling the routine of logistics and paperwork that came with the title.”

Coulson on the other hand, has begun laughing as he reads and rereads James Barnes’ intake assessment. “Hill, that was an excellent play. I really should have seen this coming.” The Deputy merely smirks and he shakes his head at May. “She was intending to put Natasha with Barnes the whole time.”

May grabs the folder from his hand, scans through the documents and breaths “Jesus”, apparently coming to the same conclusions he did. Hill knew that Coulson would say yes to Clint – Phil trained him himself and there was nothing about his character he’d ever found questionable. So, the trick was in getting him to agree to Barnes, and he had to give it to Hill: he couldn’t have picked a better candidate if he’d built the man himself.

Strongly fluent in Russian, apparently intimately familiar with the effects of domestic violence, military trained, older than Natasha but by less than a decade, gay, and driven to help people in need of care. “Mama Bear” sounded like an accurate, if not slightly inadequate, description.

“All right, you’ve sold me. May?”

There was something almost warm within Melinda’s gaze. “I’m all set. Let’s talk to Romanov.” To Hill she says: “You do realize that we’ll still be checking in on her for the next year or so, right?”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Hill acknowledges, nodding as they leave the office.

Philip Coulson knew better than anyone that due to the nature of the work they did, SHIELD tended to recruit loners. Misfits. Outsiders. The occasional self-described freak. Field agents were usually those individuals with sharp minds, unique skills, and lonely lives. In one way or another, most had unhappy homes in childhood and remained alone and unhappy into their adulthood. It's why Coulson, as Hill put it ‘collects strays’ – because he understands that often, their partners and teammates in SHIELD are the only family some agents will ever know. Whenever he trains a newbie in, he tries to make sure that whomever they are transferred to will be a good fit for them, will make sure that they won’t feel excluded from their makeshift family.

He’d been satisfied with Clint’s transfer to independent work when he’d trained him eight years ago, because he knew that he could handle that. The basics of everyday life were somehow beyond him, but Clint could keep his eyes on his own paper, even if Phil would have preferred that he have a team or partner he could rely on. To Phil, it was obvious that Clint wanted so, so badly to be able to give his trust to someone, but every person he’d encountered in his life up till then had been painfully unworthy of that trust. It sounded as though Phil’s hopes for that to change have been happily answered.

He really would have liked to keep Natasha with them – May was already fond of her, which was shocking enough in itself, but Phil had liked her, too, even despite her obvious mistrust of his presence. She was intelligent, relentless, and an absolute terror on the field of combat. Daisy and Fitz-Simmons would’ve adored her. But a glance at her psyche evals had described the origins of her avoidance with him. It didn’t matter to him that she was an agent – she was only nineteen and he wouldn’t make her suffer through the constant stress of being near both him and Ward along with a plane full of strangers, with no place of her own to escape to.

But this could really work. He had a great feeling about it.

\- - -

Steve has to say that this was not how he expected to spend his day.

Well, no, being pummeled in an alleyway was pretty much par for the course in his life. It was what happened afterwards that came as a complete surprise.

They were a pair of older high school boys, tormenting a little cat they flicked lit matches at where the poor thing is trapped in a crate.

He could practically hear Sam’s voice. **“Call someone, Steve, don’t get yourself put in the hospital for a cat. Just call.”**

But she was just mewling so pathetically – and what if her ragged fur caught on fire?

His mouth is open on instinct, words spitting out before Steve even has time to think it over. “Hey! Stop that!”

Steve has always had an extremely hard skull. The bricks, as usual, are harder still. He has blood in his eyes, in his mouth, running down the side of his face, and smeared all over his knuckles. A drizzling rain has started up, blurring his already poor vision (since his glasses are always the first casualty), and so he doesn’t see what’s happening in the opening of the alley.

Doesn’t see man glance over before reaching into the alley, grabbing the nearest boy, and tossing him aside. Before the other boy can flee, he grabs him by scruff of the neck and shakes him like a naughty puppy, muttering darkly in Russian before flinging him into his friend. For an amusing moment, he looks like he considers fighting back, before checking his attacker’s face and scurrying off.

Steve blinks through the blood and rain in his eyes as Yasha turns to him. “I had ‘em on the ropes,” he mutters, smearing more blood over the back of his hand as he wipes his bleeding lip. “Coulda handled them.”

He doesn’t know why he insists on defending his own stubbornness – after all, it’s not like Yasha understands him. But of all the ways he could encounter the man, having him witness Steve getting the shit beat out of him wouldn’t be his first choice. He never regretted the decision to stand up for people – or things – more helpless than himself, but that didn’t mean he has to be happy about having his ass whupped.

Yasha is a blur without his glasses, his face an ivory smear shaded with stubble at the jawline and darker streaks where his hair hangs over his eyes. A hand touches Steve’s bruised cheek, making him flinch back, shoulders pinching into the masonry behind him. The other man makes a soft hushing sound that freezes him in place. The hand again presses to his cheek, feels along his tender scalp and whenever he flinches, Yasha makes a low, tender sound that Steve desperately wants to feel against his own mouth. The heat and presence of him disappears for a moment before his shape returns and Steve’s slightly bent glasses are placed gently over his ears. One of the lenses is cracked, but he can now see the careful way Yasha studies him.

The man murmurs something that ends with _“…Stepushka.”_ , the only word he recognizes.

“Ste-? Me?” Steve asks in dismay, pointing to his own bird chest, where his shirt is smeared with own his own blood. “I’m ‘Stepushka’, right?”

 _“Stepan,”_ Yasha agrees, taking a clean handkerchief from his leather jacket and holding it to his split lips. Christ, he didn’t even know people still used these. Apparently if you were a six-foot Russian titan, you did. He glances down at Steve a moment before ruffling his hair with his fingers, giving the tiniest of smiles. _“Stepushka.”_

He licks his lips, feeling himself smile back and wanting to die at the same time. _Jesus, he probably thinks I’m some little kid he has to help out because his…girlfriend? Wife?... has adopted me out of pity. If I’m his version of a kid brother, I swear I’m gonna scream…_

Steve nearly yelps when the man strips off the leather jacket and kneels down, then nearly faints with embarrassed relief when Yasha picks up the crying kitty from the broken crate beside him and wraps her in his jacket. Steve stills has the handkerchief, presses the cloth to his nose and inhales, because it smells of leather and spice.

_**(“It can be a little hard for other people to notice sometimes. He's such a big softy, but it's pretty difficult for him to show it off.”)** _

The metal arm curls her against his chest and the flesh arm pets the singed fur, light as a dream. Natasha was right. He hadn’t believed it until he’d seen it with his own eyes, but Yasha really is soft as a child’s teddy bear. It was almost worth the humiliation of the situation to experience it firsthand.

He sucks the blood from his teeth and wonders what that…what that would be like.

Beyond the chronic illnesses that were mostly present in his childhood, Steve has always been a small guy, and while he’s never hesitated to stand up for people, there was a time during his college years that he felt he had something to prove. It was also after he and Peggy broke up and were trying to figure out how to be friends again – friends who used to make out. Which led to, as Peggy describes it _‘a long line of self-entitled arseholes_ ’. It was as if the mere act of surviving the relationships meant that Steve could handle himself. Steve’s male partners in particular tended to be large, tough men that he would argue with fiercely when they inevitably started to treat him as either a possession they owned or a child they could take control of.

Honestly, it was lucky that Peggy was one of his saner exes, because otherwise he’d have missed out on a great friend. He is just sorry that the minor fight that finally ended their relationship was the only time they had been truly honest with each other.

Older and calmer, Steve could now see that after their relationship ended, he’d found a socially acceptable way of punishing himself. Punishing his body for not being what he wanted by letting the people who got to touch it be almost exclusively people who loved it for how weak it was, how much control it gave themselves. People who were rough with him not because they thought he’d like that but because they liked it, and he would let them. People who loved the power he would inevitably give them (after all, he couldn’t fight back, and they were together, so what was the harm?), but then they didn’t like dealing with the responsibilities of a partner who may get pneumonia three times in one winter, or who may suddenly shove them off in the middle of intercourse because he needed an inhaler.

Brock Rumlow had been the last, and – debatably, if you listened to Sam – the worst, and Steve had gone off the dating scene after that.

But he finds himself considering Yasha as a bedroom partner despite actively trying not to. Would he get a wolf once he took his clothes off? Or a teddy bear?

Yasha’s ragged, rusty voice croons and coos to the kitty bundled in his jacket and he appears to check her for wounds, clucking in concern at the burnt edges of her dusty fur. Steve doesn’t understand what he’s saying, but he can pick up the tone for “it’s okay, sweetheart” regardless of his language skills.

He has chills, but he feels feverish and he honestly can’t tell if he’s getting sick again as usual or…something else.

Mary Mother of God, how is this his life?

\- - -

Bucky was just trying to buy his best friends a nice gift for their freaking anniversary, all right? He didn’t mean to stumble over the hot blonde artist also known as Steve getting the shit beat out of him for defending a helpless animal. And of course he promptly loses his cool.

The first one he tosses aside without really considering his actions. The second is trying to smear Steve into a paste over the masonry so isn’t treated quite as kindly. _“Bad dog, no biscuit!”_ he snaps, grabbing and shaking him. _“You been hittin’ below your weight class, brat, but you’ll find I’m light years above it – scram before I forget why hitting you would be wrong.”_

Steve blinks at him as the rain starts to come down, squinting to see him through the dimness. His glasses are on the ground four feet away from him and blood flows down his cheek, from the open gashes on his forehead where his head met the bricks, and dripping from his busted lip. There’s mulish set to his jaw. “I had ‘em on the ropes,” he says, wiping the blood from his mouth and smearing over the back of his hand. “Coulda handled them.”

He doesn’t bother replying to that nonsense – even he needs back-up sometimes, that’s what Clint and Natasha are for. Instead he tries to check the damage to Steve’s face and the first touch to his bruised cheek makes the smaller man flinch backwards and bite back a whine of pain. Bucky lets his instincts take over and hushes him gently, searching for all the cuts and wounds made by fists and bricks. Each new flinch and bitten off whine has Bucky unconsciously crooning in sympathy, and consciously suppressing the inappropriate urge to press kisses to every scrape and bruise.

Having determined that Steve probably doesn’t have a concussion, but probably does need stitches, Bucky goes hunting carefully through the alley until he can find the square thick-rimmed glasses and put them back onto Steve’s face. The squinting eases and the lines of his face relax as they stare at each other. _“Saving a cat, huh? What a brave, sweet boy. Please take better care of your pretty face, Stepushka.”_

“Ste-? Me-?” There is such dismay in his voice that Bucky nearly panics – Natasha hasn’t taught him enough to have translated that, has she? “I’m ‘Stepushka’, right?”

 _“Stepan,”_ Bucky agrees. Maybe he doesn’t know enough to understand that sentence, but apparently, he’s clever enough to remember the diminutive form for the translation of his own name. He cleans up the kid’s face as best as he can, the delicate work good practice for controlling the fine motor skills in his left arm, but he’s careful not to touch him with it. When he glances down, he finds Steve giving him such a wide-eyed look, he can’t resist ruffling the blond hair with just the barest touch of his fingers. His smile is small and disused, but he hopes Steve can understand it, understand that he means no harm. _“Stepushka.”_

_I probably look like some kind of monster to you, don’t I? Your local Russian boogieman. Every time you see me, I’m manhandling some shithead into good – or at least better – behavior, and any other time I can barely manage basic civility._

Steve licks his lips and gives him a tentative smile in return. He looks like an angel, all big blue eyes and lush, pink mouth. And Bucky really needs to look away now…

The cat in the crate is a kitten but an older one, with dark singed fur gone wet from the rain and bright green eyes. She’s too thin for her size, and she shivers and cries pathetically when he wraps her in his jacket. _“Oh, poor baby, you’re so cold! It’s okay, shhh, I’ve got you.”_ She must not be totally feral, because she doesn’t bite his fingers when he gives her a pat and when he starts petting her for real, she curls up against his chest, mewing weakly. And Bucky is a sap, so he melts like butter. _“What a sweetheart you are…come on baby, let’s you dried off.”_

He exits the alley intending to go back home and realizes that he seems to have lost his...Steve. Bucky checks behind him to find that there is an angel still in the alley, looking lost and bruised. _“Stepushka,”_ he says sternly. _“I’m not leaving you to stand in the rain.”_

When Steve remains unmoved, Bucky makes a come-hither motion. _“Come on, Stepushka.”_

Steve slowly approaches and Bucky, now satisfied that he will follow him, goes to the restaurant, all the lights darkened since today is a Monday. Steve looks like he’s about to protest when they come closer, but the protests die when Bucky circles around to the back door and unlocks the red door to the kitchen, flicking on all the lights.

“I’m pretty sure taking a cat in here is a health code violation,” Steve says from the doorway, sounding amused.

Bucky grabs the first aid kit from beside the long, scarred steel counters and hands it to Steve, gesturing him up into the back stairwell ahead of him. He’s glad Natasha insisted they find a location with the apartment stairs inside the building, even if she had been doing it for the sake of Clint’s trick knee at the time. He doesn’t fancy the idea of trying to navigate two flights of stairs in the rain with one hand, especially when he keeps being distracted by a tiny blonde’s perfect ass. It’s…it’s a good distraction.

He leaves the kitten bundle on the kitchen table, as the kitten is now half-asleep, and pulls out a chair for Steve before grabbing another for himself. Steve is clearly not sold on the idea of being triaged by a Russian male nurse with a cybernetic arm, but he submits to the cleaning, the bandaging, and when he realizes what Bucky intends to do, the stitching.

“Hey, this is pretty good,” he mutters, looking at his reflection in the hall mirror. “My mom…she was a nurse, and this looks almost as good as one of hers. God, I miss her.” He closes his eyes and sighs. Murmurs “And I have no idea why I’m talking, since you can’t understand me.”

Bucky, unable to take it, lightly touches his shoulder, meets his gaze in the reflection, and nods.

Steve’s eyes go impossibly wider. “You…you can? You understand me?”

Bucky’s throat feels tight, choked with all the words he can’t say. Won’t say. Shouldn’t say. But not telling him feels like too much of a betrayal of Steve’s trust. He nods again.

To his relief, Steve cracks a grin. “Oh, I see, you can’t speak it, but you understand English just fine, huh?”

Bucky grins back shyly, ducking his head down. It’s really hard now, this social interaction thing, when the world is basically the same but he feels so different in his own head. At the same time, it’s…nice. It’s become thrilling in a way it never was before, when talking to people was easy and effortless.

“You’re adorable,” Steve blurts out, and then covers his mouth in mortification because, Jesus Rogers, real smooth! “Sorry, sorry, I just-“

Bucky doesn’t know what he’s thinking, he can’t say what convinces him it’s a good idea – apparently to save Steve from his own embarrassment, he subconsciously decided to embarrass _himself_ twice as much. Their lips meet with a sweet pressure, feather light and Steve gives a quiet gasp because he feels feverish again, from just the slightest touch. But the sound makes Bucky shy away like a spooked horse and at such a close distance, Steve’s view of the look on his face is painfully clear.

Hurt. Ashamed. _Frightened_.

It makes him feel brave, but Steve’s always been braver than is really good for him. He catches Bucky’s face between his palms and meets the shiver-inducing texture of stubble across his fingertips and scraping over his own callouses. Steve has to stand on tip-toe to meet his lips, but it’s so, so worth it.

Bucky grabs him by the waist, just enough pressure to keep him right there where he wants him. The expanse is so small, his fingers nearly meet and the sensation makes him feel dizzy, terrified and aroused at the same time. He groans against Steve’s mouth, shudders at the flicker of a tongue on his lips. Steve whimpers “Yasha…”

_“You are so beautiful, zvezdochka.”_

They break apart, panting as if they’d been doing something far more strenuous and intense than kissing and then Steve goes pale as a thought occurs to him. He feels like a massive jerk. “Oh my god. Natasha.”

Bucky glances around them, assuming that he has spotted the woman walking through the door and is embarrassed to be caught like this in the middle of the hallway. But there’s no one apart from the two of them and a bedraggled kitten in the darkened room and Bucky is confused. _“Natalia…?”_

To his further embarrassment, Steve feels himself tear up, but doesn’t let himself cry. He never thought his attraction to Yasha would be requited, and now he has just betrayed his new friend. “You’re with Natasha,” he chokes. “And I – we just-“

Yasha, to his amazement, begins to laugh. Low and soft at first, then growing louder and fuller, until it’s a sensation he can almost feel in his chest. Yasha kisses him again, presses his lips to his cheeks, his chin, the corners of both eyes. He can feel the curve of his mouth where he still smiles. Steve considers pushing him away but Yasha takes his hand and leads him into the living room, pulling a gold tri-frame photo display from one of the bookshelves beside the television and handing over for Steve to see.

The left-side fold shows Natasha and Yasha in the middle of an aisle, a gorgeous couple if there ever was one. Natasha is in a champagne silk wedding gown with a bouquet of tiger lilies in one hand. With the other hand, she clutches Yasha’s arm. Yasha is…painfully handsome in his gray suit and deep red tie, and holding her hand with both of his as he walks her up the aisle, the metal of the left peeking out between the tangle of flesh and blood fingers. He is looking at her, studying her with a softness in his face, while she smiles, teary-eyed, at her feet.

The picture in the right-side fold shows their blonde roommate, Clint, in the same ash gray jacket as Yasha, with a dusky lavender dress shirt and no tie. Clint is staring ahead, towards the camera, as an older man in the same ash gray suit squeezes one of his shoulders. The unfamiliar man is solemn, but smiles gently at his direction, and Clint has a wide-eyed expression of yearning on his face that the photographer has captured perfectly.

Steve feels dumb as hell when he realizes what’s happening by the time he reaches the center photograph. Clint and Natasha stand across from each other, grinning and seemingly spellbound by one another. Yasha stands in front of them holding several papers – a speech, perhaps? – gazing at them with the same softness he studied Natasha with earlier. Here the photographer has captured him mid-sentence, weeping even as there is a large smile on his face.

_Christ, he wasn’t the groom, he was their officiant._

“Oh.” Steve says, voice small. He places the frame carefully back in its place. Gazes at the center photo again for a moment before turning to face him. He bites his lip. “Um… I’m…I’m sorry about that. I thought that you were... But I still don’t really do, um…casual sex, and I don’t know anything about you but your name, so…”

He shakes his head, even as he feels his heart thumping hard in his chest. _“Nyet, Stepushka. Yeda?”_

“Ye- _food_? That’s food, right?” Steve asks.

 _“Da._ ” He can’t quite resist pressing a last quick kiss to the corner of Steve’s mouth, before walking back into the kitchen to dig around the fridge.

Steve watches him assembling the leftovers from Friday’s stroganoff, the meal he’d been planning to make tonight anyway. It just needs to be warmed up with more noodles, and they’ll be set. “If I didn’t know any better,” the blonde says lightly. “I’d think you were trying to take me on a date.”

Bucky swears as he drops the pan he was holding, halfway between the cabinet and the stove. His eyes dart to Steve before quickly looking away. Steve, flushed and admittedly a bit intoxicated by the sudden attention, licks his lips. “Are you?”

 _No,_ he wants to say, _I think I’m in the middle of having a stroke… No_ , he wants to say, _but now that you’re the one bringing it up… No_ , he wants to say, _but then you started licking your lips and batting your eyes at me, you fucking minx…_

He doesn’t have the words for any of that, so he shrugs and stares at the counter. He feels like an idiot because all he has to do is find the English, but he feels like a lumbering moron and grinds his teeth, flush and embarrassed. He can’t make it come to him, especially now when he feels the pressure of the silence. Bruce – Dr. Banner – said that it’s a form of anxiety, and panicking about it will only make it worse. “Hey,” Steve says softly. “I was just teasing, I know that you don’t really.”

 _But I do!_ He wants to shout. _Steve, I want to take you on a date and hold your hand and fucking TALK to you! But I had my brain fried by a bunch of third-rate new-age Nazis and now I’m a goddamn idiot who can’t string more than three words together in English while you’re around. Jesus Christ, Natasha is fucking wrong, it’s hopeless to think this could ever work._

Frustrated, he silently goes about heating their meal over the stove.

Steve feels sad and guilty and feverish again, and this time he’s certain it’s oncoming illness rather than anything more pleasant.

The meal is delicious, but he can hardly taste it.

Bucky on the other hand, is watching too closely not to notice that Steve sways on his feet when he stands to leave and when he thanks him for the meal, his eyes are slightly glazed. The flush from earlier seems permanently painted to his cheeks.

 _“Nyet, Stepushka,”_ he says, catching his hand. The skin feels hot to the flesh on his right palm. Steve’s eyes don’t seem to stay on him. In fact, they don’t seem to see anything around him. He doesn’t even have a jacket – there’s no way Bucky’s going to let him wander out into the cold, rainy night this way. _“Come on, beautiful. Looks like you’re spending the night.”_

Steve’s eyelids are falling with fatigue and when Bucky takes a risk and presses his metal hand to his forehead, he shivers and moans “Cold.”

When Bucky sweeps a hand beneath his knees and lifts him, he is feather-light and unresisting, curling weakly into his chest like the kitten did earlier. He may not know Steve very well, but this seems like pretty un-Steve-like behavior. He curses himself for being so lost in his self-pity that he didn’t notice his guest becoming sicker and sicker. After a moment of debate, he takes Steve to his own bedroom. It feels a bit creepy of him, but Lucky won’t let Steve get any real rest on the sofa and he hasn’t the right to kick Clint and Natasha out of their own bed.

Steve shudders at the coolness of the sheets, whining unhappily at feel of the chill against his heated skin. _“Shhh, baby. Stay here while I get you some medicine.”_

He fetches medicine from the bathroom cabinet and a glass of water and finds Steve still in the bed, insensible and shivering. _“Sit up for me, Stepushka._ ” Steve swallows the pills and the water with mechanical obedience, then tries to fall back onto the pillows. _“No, no, you have a fever, you need to finish the water before you can go to sleep.”_

He coaxes Steve into finishing the whole thing, holding the glass to his mouth with one hand and using the other to keep him sitting up. By the time he drains the cup, he’s clinging to Bucky again, trying to escape the colder air of the room for warmth he radiates. _“Lay down, sweetheart. That’s it. It’s okay. I’m here, I’ve got you.”_

Steve closes his eyes and dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 9/2/2018 
> 
> I am a trash mammal.


	2. and rocks grow cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here on your right, you'll see Bucky Barnes being a really adorable dork.

His dreams are fever dreams, frightening and strange and ridiculous by turns, but nothing that his brain can hold onto for very long.

He won’t recall Bucky curling up at his feet on top of the covers like a particularly large and well-housebroken dog, the rescued kitten sleeping against his chest.

He won’t remember Clint and Natasha peering into the room, litter box and food bowls in hand, confused and somewhat triumphant with the scene they walk into.

“It isn’t what you think,” Bucky says, sighing.

“He…got sick and you’re a mother hen?” Natasha guesses.

“Okay, so maybe it’s exactly what you think.”

“Kitty!” Clint yells with glee. “Oh my god, look at her! Let’s call her Liho! She can be our ghost assassin cat.”

“Mraar?”

“She loves it!”

“Stop yelling, Steve’s trying to sleep. Help me set up the litterbox and give her a bath so she doesn’t give James fleas.”

Liho, though terrified, is cooed at and petted and grudgingly bathed and even more grudgingly introduced to Lucky, who is nearly as delighted as his master about their new resident. Liho submits, though not happily, to the thorough (second) bathing he gives her.

Steve is roused twice more by Bucky to drink another entire glass of water and swallow medication, neither of which he can remember.

The third time, he’s both awake and aware and he really, really has to pee.

“Hey, finally up!” Clint says cheerfully from somewhere above him. “You look much less like death this way.”

“Where – where am I am?” Steve asks, disoriented.

The room is not painted the boring beige that covers every wall of his apartment. Instead he’s surrounded with a deep rich brown that looks nearly purple in the light. On the bed beside him, Clint is reading a Stephen King novel and drinking coffee straight from the carafe. The cat Steve and Yasha rescued is asleep by Steve’s hip, purring happily. “You’re in B – the kozel’s room.”

“Shit,” he groans, squeezing his eyes shut. “Bathroom?”

“Next door – take a left.”

He springs out of the bed, cringing as his bladder stabs him in reproach. After washing his hands, he takes stock of himself in the mirror. The swelling by his eye has gone down, the cut in his lower lip has scabbed over, and he is still has all his clothes on. He feels sore, but not in any place he wasn’t expecting, and while he does feel gross, it’s more the discomfort after an illness than anything more sinister. The last thing he remembers was having dinner with Yasha, after hinting about a date and being thoroughly rejected. Jesus.

When he returns to the bedroom, where Clint is still reading and still drinking coffee straight from it’s pot which…just cannot be healthy. The man turns his page before pointing to the glass of water waiting on the nightstand on Steve’s side of the bed. “I know what you’re thinking, so you may as well ask.”

After a few desperate swallows, Steve says “Alright. Why am I in Yasha’s room?”

“Well, I wasn’t here at the time, but he told us after dinner you came down with a fever and he didn’t want you goin’ home without a coat on. Didn’t wanna put you on the couch where Lucky would bother ya, and he wanted to stay with you in case you needed to go to the hospital.”

Covering his face, Steve mumbles “He stayed in the bed with me?”

“You bet,” Clint confirms. “Biggest fucking mother hen on the planet. No way was he gonna leave you by yourself.”

Steve grimaces. “I’m disgusting. Shit, and I’m still covered in blood. What time is it?”

"Nearly seven." Clint brushes him off. “Wouldn’t be the first time for either of us. And we’ve both taken care of people in way worse shape then you were. Hell, I’ve been one of them. Eight years ago, our team was stationed in Berlin when I ended up with the worse stomach flu of my life. Studio apartment, middle of winter, and he didn’t leave me longer than it took to find us some food. Puked so much I spent the first forty-eight hours wishin’ I was dead.”

Steve’s brows join together. “So you were in the military together?”

He glances over, green eyes examining him. Steve has the uncomfortable feeling that Clint can see more than he realizes. “Yeah, we were.” Clint hesitates, but he can read between the lines of the things Bucky didn’t say last night. He’s not comfortable with saying things outright like Natasha might, but he wants to help and he hates to see Bucky look so filled with self-loathing. Breathing deep, he says “Before kozel lost his arm, I never really thought about what we were going to do when we got out. It seemed like a really distant future.”

“But you knew you were going to do it together?” Steve guesses. In his mind, he can see Yasha’s face, smiling and crying at the same time as he reads his friends their vows.

“Oh, yeah, no doubt about that. He’s better than a brother to me – at least he’s never tried to fuckin’ kill me. After he was captured, after they had to take the arm, all the doctors said he was never gonna be the same person,” Clint swallows, gulps his coffee to cover the sudden emotion threatening to overwhelm him. “I never gave a shit, and I told them so. Sometimes it can feel pretty weird though. To me, he’s barely different at all, but I’m pretty sure if you met the person he used to be right now, you wouldn’t recognize him.”

Steve is looking down at his hands. _You’re adorable_. “But I don’t know that person and… I think I like the person he is now.”

“Nothin’ wrong with that,” Clint says cheerfully. “If he were any more gone on you, Nat and I would have to give him a swirlie on principal.”

“Ah...you what?”

“ _Kozel_. I know he ain’t great at talking to people since we’ve come home, but he looks at you like he’s gone soft in the head.” he says directly. “Anyway, hop in the shower and I’ll find you some of Nat’s pajamas that should fit you.”

And with that bomb dropped, Clint felt safe in making his exit.

When Clint said that it was ‘nearly seven’ the part he forgot to mention was that he meant nearly seven…at night. By the time he’s finished showing and changed into a t-shirt and a pair of Natasha’s sweatpants (which are still a little big on him, damn it), his phone has charged enough for him to reboot it and a flood of messages pop up onto the screen, along with nearly thirty missed calls. “Woah.”

Monday, December 11th, 2017  
Sam  
8:09 pm: are we still down for that book signing in Queens?

Tuesday, December 12th, 2017  
Sam  
10:02 am: good morning!  
10:58 am: hey dude, where are you?  
11:23 am: seriously, Steve. I’m getting worried here  
12:19 pm: if you don’t answer me, I’m assuming you’ve been kidnapped  
12:31 pm: calling Peggy now

Pegs  
1:34 pm: Where are you?  
1:37 pm: Steve, answer the phone or I’ll send Angie to check on you  
2:18 pm: Angie says there’s no one in your apartment  
2:19 pm: I thought Sam was being an alarmist but you’re worrying me here  
2:26 pm: Steven answer your phone  
2:32 pm: I’m calling St Mary’s now, please be safe  
2:54 pm: Fuck this

Tony  
3:12 pm: remember that agreement we had about me not digitally stalking you as long you took good care of yourself?  
3:13 pm: yeah, you disappearing from the face of the planet and making Carter and Wilson have a whole fucking herd of cows? that doesn’t count as keeping up your end of things, Tinker Bell  
3:15 pm: I’m not fucking around Steve, you have ten minutes to call this off before I fire up the CCTV  
3:24 pm: you asked for it, buddy  
3:31 pm: steve  
3:31 pm: steve  
3:31 pm: steve what the hell are you doing with Furiosa?  
3:40 pm: holy shit did you just go home with him?!?!  
3:43 pm: look at the balls on you, Rogers. I’m telling Carter  
5:12 pm: holy shit holy shit  
5:14 pm: steve steve steve steve she doesn’t know  
5:17 pm: this is the best thing ever  
5:21 pm: personally I would have gone for Red October, but you do you  
5:24 pm: dude you win, you can do whatever you want, if I get a front row seat when Peggy realizes whose door you’ve been banging on  
5:30 pm: oh fuck me  
5:31 pm: ignore that message

Steve stares at his phone in trepidation.

He first met Anthony Stark during his freshman year in college. Tony was a fourteen-year-old freshman at MIT – he was young, brilliant, and he had absolutely no friends. Steve pulled him out of a group of juniors who were in the middle of trying to force him through a hazing ritual, earning himself two black eyes and a bruised rib for his trouble. Tony was a brat about it, frightened, by turns emotionally starved and spoiled his whole life. He’d mocked and laughed at Steve.

_**(“What do you think you’re doing, Tinker Bell? You’re barely big enough to take care of yourself! Stick to fights with people your own size…like a chihuahua, maybe.”)** _

Well, it wasn’t the first time someone he had helped had been less than appreciative, and by people who were supposed to be more mature than a fourteen-year-old, so Steve had shrugged it off at the time.

They got back in touch four years ago through Peggy, when she first joined SHIELD. Tony’s father Howard had worked on several large projects for the organization and they expected Tony to follow in his father’s footsteps with regards to development and creation. According to Tony, “Peg-o-my-heart is the only one at these parties that doesn’t make me pray for a national emergency or five.”

Steve ended being an eye witness to Tony’s problems with first alcohol, then cocaine, and then alcohol again. He’d finally cleaned up over two years ago, after going missing for over a month, during which Tony eventually admitted that he’d been kidnapped and then rescued by a group of SHIELD operatives.

He hates the idea that Tony may have thrown away over two years of sobriety. He hates even more that he may have been a catalyst for it. Sighing, Steve presses the call button and waits.

“Thank you, Jesus,” Tony answers after the first ring. “Now I can finally give Carter proof that you’re alive and she won’t put my balls through a meat grinder.”

He certainly sounds sober, but Steve knows through experience that Tony is exceptionally good at functioning even while black-out drunk. “Are you… feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” Tony says, starting to sound a bit puzzled. “Why didn’t you answer your phone? Carter and Wilson are practically having the vapors.”

“I got sick while I was at a friend’s,” Steve sighs, covering his eyes. He still couldn’t believe that he ended up sleeping in Yasha’s bed. That Yasha – presumably – carried him into the bed and apparently stayed with him all night long. “I only just woke up an hour ago.”

Tony snickers. “Yeah I bet. Did Barnes give you a good workout?”

Steve’s worry only grows, until it’s a small thrum of panic beneath his breastbone. “Who the hell is Barnes?”

There’s a pause. “What?”

“Tony,” Steve says, trying sound calm and patient. “Do you need me to call Pepper? There’s nothing wrong with starting over, we’ll all be here to support you, no matter what.”

There is another, longer pause, filled with a loaded silence. “Steve,” Tony says slowly. “Didn’t you spend the night with James Barnes?”

“I don’t know anyone named James Barnes, Tony,” he chokes. Has he hallucinated entire people now? He doesn’t remember Tony's black-outs being this bad? Has he been escalating, and no one’s noticed, or has Steve just forgotten how bad it was?

“Oh shit.” There is a long, loaded silence on the other end of line before Tony says “Okay, Steve, I need you to do me a big favor.”

Steve nods, choked up, and says “Of course I will, of course. I’ll call Pepper and Rhodey right away- “

“No, no, no, Steve. No. I swear on the grave of Maria Antonia Stark that I am one hundred percent sober.” Another silence on the line. “But I really need for you to pretend this entire conversation never happened. I’m not fucking around with you, Rogers.”

Steve breaths in and out, working his lungs, trying to grab a mental foothold somewhere. “Tony, you’re not making any sense here.”

“Um, okay, let say that… _hypothetically_ , you’ve just accidentally leaked a huge national security secret to a close friend.” There’s a sound of objects being moved around in the background on Tony’s end of the line as he throws things around his office. His breathing has picked up, ragged and fast. “Let’s also assume that _hypothetically_ , knowing this secret could put your friend in a frankly insane amount of personal danger and you know that people have died trying to discover it. What would you do?”

“I would be absolutely certain that my friend would never do anything to endanger themselves or anyone else, trust that they can handle themselves, and that they would be careful with such a dangerous secret.” Steve’s mind is racing. “Who is James Barnes, Tony?”

He’s never heard Tony speak so quietly. He is always full of sound and laughter. “I really, really can’t tell you that, Steve. I’m sorry, I thought – well, in hindsight, I’m not sure what I thought. I know you’ve had fights with Peggy in past about how secretive she can be about her job.” He hears Tony take a deep breath in. “But I really need you to forget you ever heard that name. I’m serious, Steve.”

And his friend sounds terrified, so he says, “What name?”

“Rogers, you’re an actual angel.” Tony breaths in shakily. “You should call Carter and Wilson and let them know you’re alright.”

“Thanks for keeping an eye on me,” he says quietly.

For a moment, he wonders if Tony has already hung up, before he says “I may have to keep a closer one on you for a while. Take care of yourself, Steve. And please forgive me for this.”

“Will do.” He doesn’t specify which, exactly, he will be doing.

When he hangs up the phone, Steve contemplates searching ‘James Barnes’ in the phone’s browser.

_**(…knowing this secret could put your friend in a frankly insane amount of personal danger, and you know that people have died trying to discover it. What would you do?)** _

He runs a hand through his hair and presses the call button again. “Hey, Pegs. Yeah, I know, I just talked to Tony. I’m sorry, I wasn’t feeling well. I didn’t mean to worry you guys.”  
\- - -  
Natasha’s mobile phone rings while she’s cleaning out the kitchen cooler and she pulls it out to check the number. The caller ID says, ‘Stark Raving Mad’ and she – reluctantly – hits accept. “Romanova here.”

“Okay, so I really fucked up and now you have to promise not to kill me.” Stark says without preamble.

“Oh, Tony,” she sighs. “I’ve never been that generous when it comes to you. Out with it, Wonder Boy, what did you manage to screw up this time?”

“Do you know a man named Steve Rogers?”

Her heart pounds, hard and heavy. She feels slow with dread. Natasha isn’t used to this, she shouldn’t feel this level of weakness for a friend she’s only just getting to know. “I do,” she says dully. “Blonde hair, blue eyes, about 5’4”, around one hundred pounds, chronic asthmatic, Irish Catholic, born and raised in Brooklyn. Is he HYDRA?”

“It never gets less scary the way you do that. HYDRA? No, dear god, no,” Tony says with a shaky laugh. “He’s a perfectly ordinary civilian, which you already know. Wanna tell me what you’re doing, letting your resident guard dog go wandering after him?”

“James likes him. He’s… well, he’s got a bit of a crush on him, to be honest.” She leans against the paneling in the back stairwell. “Why do you care, Stark?”

“That one-hundred-pound asthmatic is a friend I met through another SHIELD agent, and even now he’s probably wondering who the fuck James Barnes is,” he snaps. “Since you and Peggy don’t bother to fucking tell me anything.”

She feels her adrenaline pick up. “Peggy? Is that Margaret Carter? Brunette, English, brown hair, brown eyes?”

“Yes, of course that’s Margaret Carter! How many Peggy Carters do you know?” A sudden pause and then Tony begins laughing. “Wait, wait, wait! Did you not know that Steve’s best friend is another SHIELD agent? Oh my god, apart from the potential treason, this is the best day ever! None of you know jack shit about each other! Peg thought Barnes was an ordinary field op.”

“He _was_ an ordinary field op.”

“Oh, no,” Tony purrs. “We both know that none of you were _just_ anything, Black Widow. I hate to say this, but you need to find a way to either let Steve in on our little secret or drive him away permanently.”

“I’m not going to punish him because you’re an idiot!” she protested. “Why the hell does he know anyway?”

“Because I assumed that the Manchurian Candidate wasn’t going sleep with anyone without trusting them enough to tell them his real name!” he snarls. “Apparently I was wrong about that!”

“They aren’t sleeping together, Stark.” She holds the phone between shoulder and cheek, washing her hands slowly and methodically. “Knowing James’ real name isn’t the problem. James Barnes isn’t classified – the Winter Soldier is, and anyone still left alive who knows that they’re one and the same owe him too much to reveal that connection. And Fury made it very clear that they need to keep their mouths shut tight. But I don’t want Steve to feel like we’ve lied to him.”

“You have lied to him,” Tony says pointedly. “And I’m going to be generous here and assume that has something to do with Barnes’ English-as-a-non-option language problem.”

“It does,” she admits grudgingly. “The more he wants to speak, though, the harder it gets to actually do it. I keep telling him to be patient, but I think he believes that Steve will become…tired of him, I guess.”

Tony starts laughing, and well, he doesn’t really stop. “Steve? _My_ Steve? Steve Rogers? Steve ‘I can do this all day’ Rogers? No, if Steve’s really interested, there isn’t much that will convince him to give up. But Natasha? Though I never adhere to it myself, people tell me honesty is the best policy.”

“I’m not going to give James’ secret away for him, but I’ll keep it in mind.”

Natasha hung up, and began considering, evaluating, and discarding plans.  
\- - -  
Steve goes down the stairs slowly and takes the hall toward the kitchen, where a light shining through a doorway reveals Yasha clicking through a payment system and several lists of bills. “Yasha?”

He turns _. “Chto, Stepushka?”_

Steve’s heart races, face flushing hard, but he guides himself forward, bare feet chilly on the ancient hardwood. The organ knows what an idiot he’s about to be.

“I’m sorry I took over your bed,” he murmurs. He feels strangely separate from his body. He sees himself move as if from outside himself, cupping Yasha’s cheek with one hand. Steve strokes his jaw with his thumb and presses a kiss to his dark brow. _“Spasibo, mishka.”_

He can see it happen again – Yasha goes soft, eyes like morning rain. _“Ne za chto,”_ he whispers to Steve, without pulling away _. “No kakaya nagrada.”_

“I have no idea what that second part meant, but the pleasure was definitely mine,” Steve breaths and presses their lips together.

Yasha huffs at his boldness, but his large hands slide down Steve’s back, caressing his shoulder blades with something close to reverence. Steve shakes as he cups the nape of his neck, threads his fingers through the strands of fine dark hair. He can feel the way it makes Yasha moan all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes. A liquid heat coils through his lower belly at the sensation.

“Slowly,” he says against his lips, breathless, somewhere between a request and a command. He’s dragging in air, unwilling to pull too far away in case one of them changes their minds. “Slow…”

“ _Konechno_ ,” he agrees, staring at Steve’s mouth as though he’s been hypnotized. The blue of his eyes is darker now, a summer storm, and somehow Steve has moved to stand between his legs, his thighs spread wide in the office chair to make room.

The position puts Steve at a just slightly higher height than him and Yasha seems to have no problems with the way he uses it to take control of the kissing, keeping Yasha’s head tilted back with a fist curled loosely in the dark hair. The hot, wet flick of a tongue has him sighing sweetly into Steve’s mouth and Steve gasps at the touch of cool metal wandering up the bare skin of his lower back.

Yasha jerks his whole body back, yanking the prosthetic away from him and staring at his own hand with a sickened expression. “No, hey,” Steve says, pulling at his wrist. “It’s okay, really – just colder than I was expecting.”

Feeling emboldened, he slides the cool fingers under the front of his shirt and gasps again, the chill of metal knuckles brushing the skin of his belly. “Can you – can you feel touch with it?”

Yasha’s hand splays wide over his lower belly, stroking the warm skin with the gradually warming alloy. He buries his face into Steve’s neck and moans against his collarbone _“Bog, tvoya kozha chuvstvuyet sebya kak shelk!”_

Steve shudders all over. Cold over his belly, heat over his neck, the skin in both places thin and ultra-sensitive to temperature and touch. “I have no idea what you’re saying but the way you look at me…”

He tugs on Yasha’s hair, bites his lips, strokes the beautifully corded muscles in his back and shoulders. And Yasha purrs for him, curling an arm around his waist to pull him in closer. Which results pressing his very hard dick into Yasha’s abs and that…wasn’t the worst place his dick had ever been, it must be said. He breaks away, panting and trying awkwardly to angle his hips away, but Yasha doesn’t let go. Flexes his abdominals until Steve whines.

 _“Ah, ty tozhe?”_ he murmurs, kissing Steve’s neck, flicking his tongue out for a little taste of skin here and there.

“Me what? Oh, oh, stop, please,” Steve whimpers, clutching his shoulders. His body sparks, ready to go off at any moment. He doesn’t want to embarrass himself by coming in his jeans like a boy barely out of puberty. “It feels too good, please slow down.”  
\- - -  
Bucky is trying to keep his mind on the ledgers, he is. But it’s hard, because he still recalls how he spent the night. It was easy enough at first, curled at Steve's feet like a good dog. But as Steve’s fever had raged on, his mind had apparently wandered down the more frightening paths. Around midnight, he’d begun crying unabashedly in way that Bucky was sure he never did under normal circumstances. He’d pleaded with his dying mother not to leave him and then sobbed with grief as his feverish mind forced him to relive Sarah Roger’s funeral.

And Bucky was there, holding and rocking him, his shirt soaked with sweat and tears. He didn’t know quite how to process it. He felt closer to Steve, but it also felt like a stolen closeness. He hadn’t earned it and Steve had no way of knowing he’d given it to him, so here he was, confused and guilty.

His mind is wandering again when he hears the floorboards creak in the hall behind him. It can't be Natasha – she’s too proud to ever let anyone hear her coming, and the tread of the step is too light to be Clint. Steve then, probably quietly trying to make an exit. Which is why he is slightly surprised when he hears a small body stop near his doorway. His voice is hushed. “Yasha?”

Bucky turns his head. _“What, Stevie?”_

The blonde is flushed, heart beating a siren’s call in his bared throat, and… moving closer? “I’m sorry I took your bed,” Steve murmurs, and Bucky’s own heart stutters uncertainly as he cups his face and graces him with a kiss upon the brow. _“Thank you, teddy bear.”_

 _“It was my pleasure,”_ he whispers. He is weak, he is so damn weak for him. _"But what a reward."_

“I have no idea what that second part meant, but the pleasure was definitely mine,” Steve breaths over his lips and then kisses him.

He huffs with surprise, but Bucky can’t possibly resist having what he wants given to him so freely. Carefully cups the beautifully defined shape of his small, sharp shoulders. He can feel him trembling beneath his hands, but Steve is bold. He buries his long fingers into the hair at Bucky’s nape and scratches his nails against his scalp. The moan comes through him like the rising of the tide, breaking through his whole body. He feels Steve smile slightly against his lips and he can’t remember anything feeling this good, this light, this peaceful and yet _painfully_ alive.

“Slowly,” Steve says breathlessly. “Slow…”

 _“Of course,”_ he agrees. Steve is all husky voice and heavy-lidded bedroom eyes. He’s a dream, and Bucky would do anything he wanted, never mind something so simple.

Bucky’s easy agreement apparently relaxes Steve enough that he decides to take a bit of control. He winds the hand in Bucky’s hair into a loose fist, and tilts him into the angle he wants. A sweet tease of tongue makes him sigh with pleasure, slipping his hands lower to pull him closer. Steve gasps and Bucky recoils in horror, realizing that he’s touched him with this monstrosity. This cybernetic freak show has ripped doors straight off the wall and punched craters in asphalt and Bucky _touched him with it._

“No, hey,” Steve says insistently, pulling his arm. “It’s okay, really – just colder than I was expecting.”

The brave little shit slips the fucking arm under the front of his shirt and Steve gasps again, eyelids fluttering as Bucky’s metal fingers encounter his skin. Murmurs “Can you – can you feel touch with it?”

He spreads his fingers wide, stroking Steve’s concave belly, his knuckles slipping over the smooth skin. There is no sensation like it. He can barely comprehend it – he’s never touched anyone this intimately with the prosthetic, it feels almost forbidden. He hides his face in Steve’s neck and moans _“God, your skin feels like silk!”_

Steve shudders and pets his hair. “I have no idea what you’re saying but the way you look at me…”

He doesn’t mind, god, he does not mind how aggressive Steve can get when he’s good and ready. He grabs fistfuls of Bucky’s hair, growls and bites at lips, sucks on his tongue, and strokes greedily down his back. Bucky purrs into his mouth because he approves of his boy getting greedy. The left hand is still content to pet his flat, satiny stomach, but the right curls around his waist to haul him in closer, until he can feel the way Steve is hard and twitching in his denims.

Steve breaks away, lungs heaving as a pants, loud with the edge of a moan in each breath. He looks embarrassed and tries to shift his hips so that he’s no longer pressing himself into Bucky’s abs, but he won’t let such a prize go and flexes the muscles there until he gets a loud whine.

 _“Oh, you too?”_ he murmurs, kissing his tender neck. He smells absolutely devastating here, and every now and then Bucky flicks his tongue out to taste the male sweat tang of him, a clean and faint taste of salt now that he’s no longer ill. Steve gives a tiny, aborted grind of the hips with every wet lick, as though he can’t help himself.

“Me what?” Steve whimpers, dazed. “Oh-oh-!”

Bucky groans at the feel of him twitching and pulsing against his stomach and then Steve cries “Stop, stop, please!” He nearly thinks he’s done something wrong, but he’s still clutching hard at Bucky’s shoulders. “It feels too good, please slow down.”

Reluctantly, they both move their hands to less lurid locations, until Bucky is cradling Steve in a hug as Steve pets his hair. He hums happily at Bucky, sounding content. He is warm and beautiful, and Bucky is glad he wants to stay in his arms, because he can’t stand the thought of not touching him right now. His thin hips fit just right in Bucky’s hands. Steve is, as far as he is concerned, just the right size for him to hold. _“I have no idea how you open up to me so easily,”_ he whispers, knowing Steve will not comprehend him anyway. _“But I’ll do whatever I can to be worthy of your generosity.”_

“I have no idea what you just said,” Steve sighs back, holding Bucky’s head against his narrow chest. The heart inside thrums, going a little shaky on the beat every few minutes. “But I think I know exactly what you mean.”

The kiss Steve presses into his hair leaves him glowing.

He won’t be able to really know what he’s saying until Bucky can find a way to bring back his primary language skills in front of him. His identity is, in part, a lie. Until then, it will enough to know that Steve can see his intent.

From the doorway, Clint coughs and the two of them leap apart, flushed and smiling shyly. “Sorry, I don’t mean this break up this… um, moment, but Tasha says I oughta walk home with you before it starts snowing out.”

Bucky shakes his head. _“I’ll take him home. We both know that your knee is hurting, ptichka.”_

 _“I bet you’ll take him home, you sly dog,”_ Clint says, grinning and clapping him on the back. _“Tap that, kozel. I’ll bribe Natasha into doing the bills.”_

_“Take your mind out of the gutter, ptichka. I’m just going to make sure he doesn’t try to stop a robbery or something this time.”_

Clint looks a bit alarmed at that. _“You never know, kozel. Zaichik ain’t kidding around.”_

 _“I hope he figures out what you’re calling him just so I can see him clock you,”_ Bucky says with a ruthless laugh.

Steve gives him a sunny smile as he tugs him toward the door. “Oh, are we leaving now? That’s awfully forward.”

Bucky’s heart pounds. He knows Steve is teasing – that’s what the dancing eyes and quirked smile is about. So he tugs on a lock of blonde hair and snaps his teeth at him playfully as he leads him out the back door.

“Naughty,” Steve laughs. “I like it. Oh, god, you’re blushing!”

He is. Jesus Christ, is he fifteen fucking years old? Bucky had never considered himself to be a smooth man, but once upon a time, he’d been charming in a blunt, off-beat kind of way.

“You’re still adorable,” Steve whispers, kissing his jaw and carding a gentle hand through his hair.

Steve’s fingers thread through the fingers of the prosthetic, warming the chill of the metal with his thin hands.

It only takes half an hour before they’re right outside Steve’s door, kissing like their next breath depends on it, until Steve breaks away, gasping for air. Steve leans against the door, grateful for the support since Yasha has made his knees go weak, and they both catch their breath with foreheads pressed together.

Steve looks in his eyes, hands delicately cupping his face, and whispers “It scares me how right this feels.”

And Bucky nods and swallows and kisses him fiercely before whispering _“You’re dear to me, dorogoy.”_

“Dorogoy?” Steve repeats.

It drips from his brain slowly, sliding onto his tongue until it rumbles up from his vocal chords, resonating out naturally from the first language he knew, and Bucky sighs it happy _. “Dragul meu.”_

“ _Dragul meu,”_ Steve breaths over his lips, stumbling a little with the pronunciation, but making an excellent first effort. He’s just parroting what he hears, but the sound of his voice repeating the endearment still makes Bucky feel shaky and excited. “Have you reconsidered your opinion on giving me that date?”

He says it so coyly it makes Bucky shudder, and he kisses him frantically, all over his pretty face, until Steve is flushed and laughing. “Okay, okay, I get it. You really like that idea, huh? How about… hm… seven… this Friday?” He grips the collar of Bucky’s shirt and murmurs “I’ll try not to get sick this time, okay? As much as you impressed me, I’d rather not do that again.”

Bucky nods and looms over Steve, bracing his forearms on the door above him to make sure he keeps his hands off that hot little body. He kisses Steve goodbye, as sweetly as he knows how, and his brain is still wired to factory settings, so when he says goodnight, it comes out _“Noapte buna, dragule.”_

“That’s goodnight, huh?” Steve says with a sad smile. He leans up and softly bites on Bucky’s lower lip. “Goodnight, _mishka_.”

Oh, this man is so dangerous. Bucky’s a sucker for dangerous.  
\- - -  
Natasha considers multiple plans of action, but in the end, the knows that only two things will force James into speaking without his conscious mind interfering with the translation: sudden terror or sudden joy. There are many fairly easy ways she could inspire him to fear with Steve around, but she doesn’t want to do it that way for several reasons, chief among them being that James could throw himself straight into a panic attack or even accidentally injure Steve trying to protect him.

And it was sentimental, but she didn’t want the first time Steve heard James speaking English to either be with the voice of his rigidly controlled calm or the barked out commands of his crisis mode.

But Natasha only knows one thing she can try that’s guaranteed to induce a burst of surprise joy from James.

She’s done it twice before, once purely by accident because she thought it would make James feel better, and once on purpose to get him to start talking to Bruce – Dr. Banner – in English.

Rebecca Proctor – the accidental incident – lived all the way in San Diego and while she loved James deeply, it was best if they stayed apart. Her childhood with him had been painful and difficult for them both and though it was clear she’d loved being able see him, Rebecca made it clear that she couldn’t handle being around him on a permanent basis.

**_(“My brother is a good man, and it makes me happier than you know that I got to see it for myself. But the part of my life where I knew him is one that I try to forget as much as possible. I’m sorry. Please tell James to write me as soon as he’s able. I’m glad he has you both, you obviously care about him a lot. Thank you for bringing me to meet him.”)_ **

Having seen what the face of a loved one who was missed could do to inspire happiness in him, when Bruce was attempting to find ways to solve James’ language problems during therapy sessions, Clint had Bobbi and Fitz waiting for him on that quiet couch.

Barbara Morse was the big sister James had never had to protect him. She’d been his S.O. for field training during his days as a brand-spanking-new agent and while she’d made him work like a horse with the very devil driving his reins, she’d also defended him like a she-wolf from unfriendly fellow agents who’d been unhappy with having the young, openly queer army sergeant in their ranks. Bobbi herself was absolutely merciless with her teasing and her nagging of James, but if you were around her, you’d better not breathe even a word of ill against him or you’d be lucky to escape with your life.

Leopold Fitz was a different story. They didn’t…date, per say, but Fitz and James had a very brief liaison. Fitz was in love with Simmons already, but at the time, she was dating Will, and he also had an intense crush on Mack, but didn’t have the self-confidence or experience with men to risk doing anything about it. James was a lot more direct back then and Fitz was exactly his kind of man – slender, fair-haired, with great big soulful eyes.

Around this same time, Natasha started picking up on the fact that there was a bit more to James’ preferred men than a body type though, and Fitz wasn’t it. Fitz was shy, too intimidated to ever make the first move, and he became nearly panic-stricken any time James tried to take his clothes off. Later he admitted to Natasha that being with Fitz left him feeling dirty and ashamed of himself.

**_(_ _“I can’t do this anymore, Natasha. I feel like I’m trying to talk my little brother into letting me put my hand down his pants.”_ **

**_“Fitz is an adult, but he’s clearly not ready for this and it’s destroying you, James. Just let him down gently and move on.”)_ **

Their history may be complicated, but the relationship wasn’t. He really was a lot like James’ little brother – even after their disastrous attempt as friends with benefits. Fitz had a star-struck admiration for him, and James in turn was fiercely protective of Fitz, especially after realizing exactly how painfully self-conscious he was.

There was really only one other person James would be so happy to see, and she would dance with glee at the very idea. Natasha had a phone call to make.  
\- - -  
Friday, December 15th

Steve didn’t even remember the last time he was this nervous for a first date. When he was sixteen, maybe? He’d changed his outfit four times already, and nearly went back to do it again until Sam sternly stopped him. “From what you’ve told me – thanks for the TMI, by the way – he’s pretty appreciative of your looks as it is, dude. You don’t wanna give the guy a heart attack ninety seconds in on day one. Save some mystery for when you’re on the tenth anniversary and sick of each other.”

“You’d know, you and Riley are practically married,” Steve says, smirking at him. “Fine, fine, I’m going. You don’t have to wait up.”

“The hell I don’t. He’s a nice guy, but the last time you were together, I couldn’t get a hold of you for over twenty-four hours.” Sam gave him a long-suffering look. “At least have him text me if you get sick again.”

“Will do, Sam. Thanks.”

“Practice safe sex, man.”

“Haha, Sam.”

Natasha greets him as he walks into the restaurant and whispers “Steve? Can I talk to you for a second?”

He gives her a puzzled smile. “Something wrong?”

“No, I just wanted to know if you had any plans for Christmas Eve. It’s probably a little late, but I wanted to ask just in case. We close the restaurant that whole week between Christmas and New Year’s and we make this gigantic dinner. It’s fine if you have other plans made…”

“I don’t, actually,” he admits, looking at the floor near her feet. “I don’t actually have any family left, so I usually spend holidays with Sam, Riley, and Peggy.”

“Feel free to bring them along if you like. Clint and Yasha are a little… estranged from their only remaining siblings and I don’t have any family to speak of, so we invite as many friends as we can.”

“Alright, thanks Natasha. I’d love to go.”

“Great! Now go through the back hall and meet him by the stairs so you can finally put him out of his misery,” she whispers, giving him a wink. “He’s barely been able to sit still since noon.”

Steve slid past the swinging doors into the kitchen, twisting his way through the bustling staff members, who were all calling out orders and carrying trays of food. His mind was still caught on the conversation he’d just had with Natasha.

Yasha has a sibling that he doesnt talk to?

That didn’t seem like the man he knew. Steve had already seen how much affection Yasha had for Natasha and Clint. Clint had hinted during their conversation on Tuesday that he didn’t have the best relationship with his own brother – Steve would like to believe that aside about Clint’s brother trying to kill him was a joke, but he had the feeling it was less a case of light-hearted joking and more black humor. What happened between Yasha and his sibling that he no longer kept in contact with his brother or sister?

He couldn’t really imagine that – Steve was an only child and he’d spent the first ten years of his childhood longing for a brother or sister. As he’d grown older and he came to understand how much his mother worried for him and how intense many of the treatments for his medical conditions were when he was younger, he’d come to conclude that his being an only child was more a blessing than anything else.

As he traversed the noisy kitchen into the silence of the back of the building, Steve almost did not notice Yasha waiting by the stairs.

Stupidly, his first thought is that Natasha definitely picked out this outfit. Yasha has never dressed like a man interested in showing himself off to people or indicated he is in any way knowledgeable about what looks best on him.

The suit is an enticing compromise.

He wears the gray suit jacket from the wedding photo, a dress shirt of a darker gray with a subtle pattern, and a tie that is neither silver nor blue but somehow both at once. It makes his eyes shine the same icy blue of a winter sky and draws attention to his well-muscled shoulders and the sharp red curve of his lips.

He is beautiful – a remote creature made entirely of smoke and shadows. Like the misty curl of a heavy breath in winter air, he looks enchanting, but impossible to touch, which only makes Steve long to hold onto him that much more.

 _“Stea mea,”_ Yasha greets him, reverent. It’s no recognizable greeting Steve’s ever heard of, so it must be something else. He slinks forward a few paces with uncanny grace, hand outstretched as if to touch Steve before pausing, unsure of the welcome waiting for him. Yasha seems to wait for permission just out of reach, gazing at him hungrily.

Steve quirks his lips, teasing gently, “If you won’t give me a kiss, at least say hello.”

He runs a hand through Steve’s golden hair, palm cupping the back of his head as he leans forward.

 _“Buna seara, stea mea,”_ Yasha greets him, gazing at him warmly. As he comes closer, Steve can smell him – a beautifully clear, crisp scent of fresh pine and new snow. When their lips meet, he discovers that his mouth is warm, wet, and tastes of mint toothpaste. Steve turns the quick, hot greeting into long minutes of kissing, licking the taste out of his mouth until he tastes of himself again. They stand there with tongues tangling over and over, just making out against the wallpaper like young teenagers.

When they break away, they’re both panting madly, the humid air warming Steve’s cold cheeks. “Sorry,” he gasps, not at all apologetic. “I didn’t mean to jump all over you, but you’re kind of gorgeous.”

Yasha is half-laughing, his callouses gently rubbing over the soft skin of Steve’s jaw and neck. His voice is a hoarse, rough timbre that makes the hair on the back of his neck prickle. “ _Ne za chto. Tu esti cea mai frumoasa stea de pe cer.”_

Steve sighs happily, pliant and relaxed even through Yasha has him pinned to the wall – something he has usually protested in the past. “I still have no idea what the second part means, and the pleasure is still definitely mine.”

Yasha leads him upstairs to the apartment. The dining room is lit by only candles, wine already in the glasses. Soft swing music plays from the living room and the whole apartment smells of parmesan and seared beef. Steve’s mouth starts watering the moment of he steps through the door. He hadn’t realized until now, but he’s starving – he’s been too nervous to eat anything more filling than a bowl of cereal today.

His mist-like companion pulls out a chair for him at the head of the table, and seats himself to Steve’s right. _My right-hand man,_ he thinks wryly.

Steve is more than a little surprised when Clint comes through from the apartment kitchen, holding a tray from the restaurant from which he serves the first course – greens with toasted almonds and citrus vinaigrette, according to Clint. Yasha speaks, looking directly at Steve, none of the words recognizable except “I apologize”

Which is why it’s so startling when Clint says “I apologize because this will be very strange for you, but I thought it might be best for you to understand me properly since I’m practically a stranger to you. Clint’s an awful liar, so I promise he won’t fuck up the translation to make me look good.” Here, Clint paused and looked over at Yasha, saying “Really, _kozel_? You want to use ‘fuck’ on the first date? Very classy over there.”

When Clint translates whatever Yasha replies with, it comes out a few seconds later “Just shut up and dance for me over there, monkey.” He then speaks for himself, adding “And don’t worry, the kozel cooked the food, so it will be edible.”

Steve hides his gigantic smile behind the cloth napkin tucked in next to his plate after taking a bite of the salad, which is delicious, Yasha quietly adds something that Clint is somber when he translates “I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable. I didn’t want you to think I was only interested in the physical aspects of a relationship with you. Clint is doing this as a favor to me, so if it makes you uneasy, he will leave us alone.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t think that at all,” Steve says quickly, reaching over to squeeze his fingers. “Believe it or not, this is still not the strangest date I’ve ever been on. You haven’t asked me about my toe-nail clipping habits or if I’m into necrophilia yet… for example.”

Yasha’s wide eyes and horrified face suit Clint’s translation perfectly. “Oh, dear god, please tell me no man has actually asked…?”

“The toe-nail thing was a woman, actually, but yes, I have really had people ask me both of those questions.”

“I promise I’m not into corpses or feet.”

“Oh?” Steve teases “Something else I should be warned about?”

Yasha’s pale eyes seek his face, and he swallows, looking anxious. Clint speaks up in soft Russian, before Yasha responds and he dutifully translates the words “Maybe you were only joking but if there’s something specific you’re concerned about, ask me a simple yes or no question and I will respond without translation at a more private moment. If it helps to know, I am willing to do many things if my partner wishes, but most things on the more unusual spectrum I don’t find all that interesting.”

It is a little weird, at first, having Yasha speak and then Clint translate for him, but after a while, Steve becomes more accustomed to it. By the time they are eating the ribeye and parmesan risotto, Steve’s asking where he grew up. Yasha admits that he was born in Romania. “So, your name isn’t Yasha, then?”

“ _Iacob_ ,” he says, after a moment, then adds a longer sentence.

Clint also hesitates before saying “The way you say my name in English is James.” Steve is looking at Yasha – at James – when he adds onto that statement, so he doesn’t see the look of surprise on Clint’s face even as he dutifully translates the words “But if we’re going to be friends, you should call me Bucky. Only Natasha ever calls me James.”

“But why ‘Bucky’?” Steve asks, confused.

Another slight pause, before Bucky finally speaks and Clint spends the whole time staring at him in shock behind Steve’s back. “Because Bucky is short for James Buchanan Barnes. It stuck permanently when I joined the army, and there were four other men in my unit with the first name James. That’s the other reason I asked Clint here. I told you that I can understand English, but don’t speak it. To be more accurate, I can, but not right now.”

Steve glances from Bucky to Clint. “This isn’t some kind of practical joke, is it?” His tone is concerned enough that he knows Steve is taking this seriously. “Bucky?”

He closes his eyes and inhales at the sound of Steve saying his real, preferred name. “Losing my arm was only a temporary setback, as you can tell by this hunk of metal attached to my shoulder. The real reason I ended up being discharged was that I suffered some brain damage and it messed up a lot of things. I’m afraid I can’t explain it to you without freaking myself out, but basically the way it works is: the moment I heard you speaking, my brain told me that because you speak English, I can’t.”

He takes several deep, steading breaths as he waits on Clint to finish his side of the translation. “I just wanted you to know what you were dealing with before we continued on much longer. It’s a problem I’m working on, and I’ll probably have to work on it for the rest of my life.” Bucky shrugs and stares at the tablecloth, unable to meet the pure, deep blue of those unblinking eyes anymore. “I’m just saying you might not think I’m worth all this work.”

Clint, who is usually incapable of restraining himself unless life or death circumstances call for it – and sometimes even then he’s willing to take the gamble – cannot take anymore. “I’m sorry, I know I’m supposed to be part of the furniture here, but Steve, that’s bullshit. I admit, this is probably a weird date and I don’t blame you for finding this whole thing very strange but don’t listen to this kozel. He’s worth it.”

Steve squeezes Bucky’s fingers, until he lifts his head and will meet his gaze again. Steve’s stare carries an almost painful intensity. “Yeah, I think so, too. Clint, would you mind leaving us alone for a few minutes? I want to say a few things to you and this is pretty unfair, but frankly I don’t want to give you a way to argue with me.”

They can both hear Clint laughing as he retreats into the kitchen.

Thin fingers curl around the rough texture of stubble. “Don’t you dare, Bucky.” He feels Bucky trembling beneath his hands, watches him close his eyes and breathe shaky and slow. “I don’t know how many dates we’ll go on. Maybe we’ll know each other for a few weeks or a few decades – I can’t tell the future. But I haven’t seen a single thing that makes me think you’re not worth the effort.”

Bucky turns his head to catch Steve’s mouth with his own. The sudden warmth serves to remind him of how cold he truly is. “ _You don’t know everything, stea mea. You don’t know about the Winter Soldier.”_

“Don’t argue with me, James Buchanan.” Steve yanks on his hair and smiles against his lips when Bucky groans at him. “Now call Clint back in here before I’m tempted to ruin you in this fucking suit. And now I’ve said fuck on the first date, too.”

The rest of their dinner is more normal, even if Clint still has to translate for Steve so that he can understand Bucky’s half of the conversation. It isn’t Clint’s steady voice or the few jokes he cracks that Steve will remember later, although in time those will both be fond memories for him.

He’ll remember Bucky by candlelight, grinning shyly at him. Bucky, vulnerable and direct as he tells him that his brain won’t let him speak to Steve. He’ll also remember the way Bucky looks at him as they finish dessert, the way he starts shaking with anticipation and nerves as Clint translates “Are you alright with Clint leaving now? There isn’t much room, but I’ve set up a space to dance in the living room.”

Steve bites his lips, smiling. “I’m a terrible dancer, but I’d love to dance with you if you don’t mind getting your feet stepped on.” To Clint he says, “Thank you for tonight, but I think we’ll be fine from here.”

Clint grins, clapping him on the back. “I told him you didn’t seem to be having a problem with understanding him.”

“It’s not hard – he has the most expressive face,” Steve says, with the same lowered eyelashes look that drove Bucky crazy Tuesday.

 _Time to leave now_ , Clint thinks, glancing over at his friend.

Right now, Bucky looks like he’d rather be having Steve for dessert and... Steve would rather be letting him, going by the serious pair of bedroom eyes he’s turned in Bucky’s direction. He isn’t sure Steve is even aware he's doing it, but he could give Bette Davis a run for her money with that stare. Bucky is practically salivating, and Clint honestly couldn’t blame him with a look like that being aimed at him.

_Jesus, really time to leave now.  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 9/3/2018
> 
> I am still a trash mammal.


	3. and philomel becometh dumb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You'll also get to see Bucky have a filthy fucking mouth.
> 
> Didn't actually mean to write the filth this early, but Sergeant Barnes clearly had other plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't speak any language other than English, so thank you for your patience/forgiveness/general tolerance with my google translations.

Natasha is working the bar when she receives the text message from Clint. She ends up texting him rapid-fire between patrons.

 

**Friday December 15 th 2017**

_**My Favorite Dumbass** _

8:11 pm: ohmigod they’re so fucking cute tasha H E L P

8:12 pm: stark was right steve does not quit easy

8:13 pm: and i’m pretty sure they’re 80% of the way to fucking

8:14 pm: barnes wants him for dessert

8:14 pm: and steve just put himself on the menu

8:15 pm: omg they’re dancing now seriously i’m dying they’re so cute

 

_**Me** _

8:16 pm: Don’t be ridiculous, Clint

8:16 pm: They’re both far too self-conscious for that this early in the relationship

8:20 pm: And James just told him he’s a traumatized war veteran

8:21 pm: Steve won’t take advantage of that until they can speak to one another

 

_**My Favorite Dumbass** _

8:24 pm: ?!?!?!

8:27 pm: you knew barnes was gonna tell him????!!!!!!!!!!

8:30 pm: WHAT THE HELL TASHA?!

8:31 pm: i thought i was his wingman!!!

 

_**Me** _

8:32 pm: Who do you think told him to use you as an interpreter?

8:33 pm: I had to do something – James is certain he’ll scare him off sooner or later

 

_**My Favorite Dumbass** _

8:37 pm: and you’d rather have it sooner?

8:39 pm: so you’re testing him

8:40 pm: this was a test, and Steve passed, right?

 

_**Me** _

8:44 pm: Yes and no, to the testing

8:44 pm: That dinner was a 3 on the weirdness scale of James’ life

8:46 pm: If he can’t handle a 3 he deserves the chance to move on as quickly and painlessly as we can manage

 

_**My Favorite Dumbass** _

8:50 pm: …

8:52 pm: jeez

8:52 pm: tasha we talked about this

8:55 pm: you can’t protect him from everything

 

_**Me** _

9:02 pm: It isn’t just James I’m protecting Clint

9:04 pm: Steven is a civilian

9:05 pm: We’re letting him walk in blind

 

_**My Favorite Dumbass** _

9:07 pm: shit

9:08 pm: you’re talking about soldat, aren’t you?

9:11 pm: barnes has it under control

 

_**Me** _

9:15 pm: Clint, we’ve also talked about THIS. With Dr. Banner.

9:16 pm: And Fury. And Hill. And Coulson. And James.

9:19 pm: Soldat is not ‘under control’, he’s just dormant

9:20 pm: This appears to be developing into a long-term relationship, Clint. James can’t hide it from him forever and if Steve panics, that drastically increases the chance of an accident occurring

 

_**My Favorite Dumbass** _

9:27 pm: he’s not dangerous tasha he wouldn’t hurt anyone

9:29 pm: once we removed the fucking commands, he was harmless

9:32 pm: the atrium proved that didn’t it?

9:34 pm: it was nothing barnes wouldn’t have done

 

_**Me** _

9:38 pm: James wouldn’t have vaulted three stories through a glass roof

9:39 pm: Or bounced a man’s head off a marble floor

9:40 pm: Or caved in another man’s sternum

9:41 pm: And all of that right in front of poor, hysterical Simmons

 

_**My Favorite Dumbass** _

9:48 pm: so you think that zola the asshole was right?

9:50 pm: he needs to be kept locked up for everyone’s safety?

 

_**Me** _

9:52 pm: I didn’t say that. I would never say that

9:55 pm: But it’s stupid to pretend James is always the one in the driver’s seat

9:56 pm: I’d like to think Steve won’t have to see that, but he probably will

9:56 pm: We need to make sure that he understands the implications of that

9:57 pm: If he can’t handle those implications, I want him gone

9:58 pm: Before James becomes far too attached

9:58 pm: Or Steven accidentally gets hurt

 

_**My Favorite Dumbass** _

10:00 pm: you are so scary

 

_**Me** _

10:01 pm: I invited Steve to have xmas with us and the misfits

 

_**My Favorite Dumbass** _

10:03 pm: oh wow, you really do want him gone

 

_**Me** _

10:04 pm: You love all of them, don’t even lie to me

 

_**My Favorite Dumbass** _

10:06 pm: oh i totally love them

10:07 pm: but they’re kind of…a lot

10:08 pm: i’m not sure steve’s okay with that

10:10 pm: also it’s possible i owe some of them money…

10:11 pm: don’t play poker with those people nat it’s dangerous

 

_**Me** _

10:12 pm: You’re a moron, Clint

 

_**My Favorite Dumbass** _

10:12 pm: i love you too mrs barton

\- - -

Clint closes the front door and Bucky stands slowly and offers his hand.

“This feels a bit cheesy,” Steve says with mock-skepticism, but still places his own hand in the warmth of his right palm. 

Bucky gives a small smile and a shrug. A self-deprecating, helpless ‘well, what can you do?’ sort of expression. As he leads him into the living room, the press of a button on Bucky’s phone changes the song on the stereo and the soft lull of ‘Moonlight Serenade’ plays throughout the room. It really _was_ cheesy – the sort of cliched, old-fashioned romantics that most people roll their eyes at.

Steve loves it and that makes him feel awkward as hell.

“I have two left feet,” he repeats in a mumble as Bucky’s arm slides along his waist. He feels the vibration of a quiet laugh against his cheek.

To his surprise, Bucky leads him through the bare bones of a basic box-step waltz with confidence. To his even greater surprise, he begins humming along with the music, low and pleasant. Steve rests his head upon his collarbone and tries to quell the sudden and irrational urge to cry. He loves it and he really doesn’t have the words to explain why.

People don’t put this much effort into tenth dates let alone first ones in his experience, and without the use of any words, Bucky managed to communicate several parts of his own personality to Steve. His date is a total sap, a little corny, a bit old fashioned, loves big band, knows how to dance, and is a romantic at heart.

They sway slightly on Natasha’s vintage Persian rug. Steve’s hands grip the silk dress shirt beneath the jacket at the small of his back, and he whispers, “I don’t want to sound like a crazy person, but I have to be honest with you after tonight.”

Bucky makes an inquiring sort of sound, breathing in the warm scent of his golden hair.

Steve uncurls his fingers to lay his palms flat on the smooth muscles stretched across his lower back. His heart beat is just a touch too fast for the pace of their clumsy dancing. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do with you, Bucky Barnes.”

 _“Pastreaza ma, dragule.”_ He feels Bucky take a breath under his cheek, feels it all around him. He is a small mountain which holds him, and breaths, and guides him in a slow dance.

“ _Dragule_ ,” Steve repeats, resting his lips on the skin exposed by Bucky’s open shirt collar. “I think that’s ‘darling’, right? Am I your darling?”

Bucky considers his answer. He could lie, but there’s no point, with all the truths he’s already told today. His life, such as it is, is mostly an open book apart from one or perhaps two Very Big Secrets. And somewhere in his mind, his mother still lives on. Winifred Barnes is the biggest reason he didn’t turn out to be a serial killer or something and he changed his legal surname to hers as soon as he turned eighteen. He can still see her, with her tired eyes and the quiet warmth of her Brooklyn accent. **( _“My big fine boy, with his big fine heart. Anybody who gets it better consider themselves damn lucky.”)_**

Steve feels him nod, Bucky’s coarse cheek soaking up the sensation of his soft hair. _“Dragul meu,”_ he agrees tentatively. The fingertips of the flesh hand stroke a gentle line down the back of his neck. “ _My little darling.”_

“God,” Steve moans, cuddling closer to his chest to bury himself in the cool forest smells of Bucky. Just above his navel, he can feel Bucky half-hard against him. He wriggles his hips, breath hitching as his own prick makes contact with the solid muscles in Bucky’s thigh.

The metal hand sitting at the small of his back spreads wider and applies a gentle pressure, encouraging him to put more force into the friction. Steve moans again at the feel of the cock throbbing to life against his lower belly. He grips the suit jacket almost violently as his hips jerk harder, despite knowing that this is terrible idea.

He’s left with no way of allowing Bucky to properly communicate with him and he has no intentions of sleeping with him tonight.

But it feels so fucking good, and Bucky is hard and pulsing and hot against him. Bucky keeps the pressure of one hand against his lower back and the other slides eagerly over his buttocks to grip his thigh and shift him into a better angle.

Steve sobs as he holds him closer, rocking his hips in time with the growling that comes from his partner. Steve yanks the shirt collar open more, until he can slide his greedy hands underneath to grip his shoulders, hot and rock solid under his hands. Bucky makes no more moves to maneuver their position, but he does take the opportunity to thoroughly grope Steve’s ass with his one free hand, give the respectable swell a loving squeeze – all muscle there too, not an inch of fat to spare – and trailing his fingers longingly down the shape of his taunt thighs.

“Kiss me,” Steve commands through gritted teeth, lips thin and white from holding back the snarl of darker, more intimate words struggling to fight their way past.

Bucky surges down to meet him and Steve is barely aware that he’s pulling his hair. He’s too focused on devouring him, starting with his lips. He has a brief moment to hope that he isn’t too disturbed by the state Steve’s in.

People generally don’t expect the tiny asthmatic to get turned on, and then suddenly lose his mind and start pushing them around.

When he was just reaching adulthood, it scared him and spurred a brief and unhappy exploration into BDSM, both as a dom and as a sub.

But as it turns out, subs were not thrilled at the idea of being dommed by a ninety-pound man, and the more Steve explored the scene, the less he found it appealing to him. Steve wasn’t interested in whips, ropes, or having somebody call him ‘master’. Paddling someone? No, thank you. A little old-fashioned spanking? Maybe. But nothing about the intricate procedures and hardcore roleplay excited him. Some of it he found horrifying, and most in the scene found him too vanilla anyway.

His exploration into being a sub was frankly an even bigger disaster. If Steve was aggressive when aroused in a vanilla situation, he was downright mean as a sub. He’d finally ended that foolish decision when in the middle of his fourth scene, he reflexively bit his poor unsuspecting dom. Steve felt terrible afterwards, giving a heartfelt apology and later buying her dinner. The unfortunate woman had been expecting someone who was willing and eager to sub, not someone who would fight her the whole time and was really looking for a way to get rid of their own weird hang-ups.

Peggy was one of the few who had actually enjoyed this quirk of his, because she liked to fight back and it became their version of foreplay. He’s smart enough to admit that it was a big part of why they stayed a couple for several months longer than they really should have, because she was one of his few partners who hadn’t teased him for getting so aggressive. After they returned to being friends and Steve told her about his dating woes, he didn’t have the communication skills to express to her that the only thing wrong with that was that he didn’t _want_ to have to fight – he wanted his partner to just _submit_ , damn it.

He doesn’t want to fight, to argue, or to be fucking laughed at (which happened more often than not, if he were honest).

But Bucky…Bucky seems to be perfectly happy to go along for the ride Steve has already begun taking them on.

Steve has moved on to Bucky’s neck, where he licks off the taste of his pine-and-snow cologne and Steve feels like he may be getting drunk from it. Bucky is moaning softly into his ear, a steady stream of honey-sweet encouragements he knows more by tone than comprehension. Apparently, he’s a talker. God, Steve hopes they manage to work something out on this language barrier thing – he’s dying to know what Bucky’s saying. The hand on his thigh rubs suggestively close to his balls and Steve honestly cannot remember the last time he was this fucking turned on.

He can’t seem to stop himself from pushing for more, and yanks on his handful of hair, biting down savagely on the curve of Bucky’s neck. This close, he can feel Bucky shudder with his whole body and his whines are almost as intoxicating as his cologne. And he _does_ whine: tiny, helpless sounds as he nuzzles at Steve’s collarbones, still whispering urgently.

It is now that Steve realizes he is shockingly close to coming right there in the living room.

\- - -

Bucky is a little lost. For the record, it’s a good kind of lost. Getting better by the minute, in fact.            

He was expecting a reaction of some kind to his earlier admission, but he was expecting everything from again being quietly told that they were moving too quickly to outright nervous rejection. 

He was not expecting Steve to cuddle up to him as sweet as sugar and wriggle his narrow hips until Bucky’s cock is fully hard and his eyes are rolling back in his head. The little hitch of Steve’s breath does give him a moment of fear, so Bucky places his hands to better support him, giving him a more satisfying angle to work with in the process. He growls at the way Steve pulls him in closer, rocks harder.

His tiny, ferocious firecracker pulls at his shirt, yanking away the tie so that Steve can slide his hands underneath to pet at his chest and shoulders. He is floating on a sea of hormones, so immersed in them he forgets to be horrified that he’s allowing Steve to touch the wrecked mass of scar tissue that is his left shoulder. Bucky’s a bit too distracted with fondling the lush little expanse of Steve’s ass and the trembling muscles of his thigh.

Steve’s eyes are black with lust in the dim light of the room. He grips Bucky by the lapels and snarls “Kiss me” through his bared teeth and white lips.

Bucky grips him harder, eager to obey, lunging for those lush rose-pink lips. God, he’s a dream come fucking true. He was hoping (he is always hoping), but his hopes are so rarely answered. Steve attacks his mouth, grabbing at his hair and biting like a wild thing. Bucky is drowning in five-foot-four of hot blonde and he loves it. Steve is vicious as a cougar and he loves that, too. His lower lip bleeds where Steve’s slightly too long canines have accidentally cut him open with their haste and his cock hurts from being trapped in these ridiculous pants. It’s been almost three years since he even wanted anything close to this and it’s been longer than he can remember since he found a man he wanted this much, who fit him this well.

Bucky moans unabashedly as Steve moves on to his jaw, his neck, sucking bruises into whatever patch of skin he encounters, and the words spill out of his mouth, a stream of x-rated whispering. To be fair, he knows Steve won’t understand anything he’s saying, but he can’t help it. He’s always had a big mouth. Some find it hot, some find it irritating, and some barely notice, but Bucky just can’t keep his trap shut if he tried.

 _“You’re such a sweet thing and you’re gonna eat me alive, dragule. I’ll beg you to do it too, with that angel face of yours. I’m already broken in for you, sweetheart. Just saddle me up and I’ll go as long as you want.”_ He moans raggedly as Steve sucks particularly hard on a sensitive spot near his jugular, rubbing his fingers just a few centimeters from Steve’s crotch. _“God, I love your tight little ass in my hand.”_

Steve, voice a thunderous timbre outsizing his fragile-seeming body, rumbles a growl at him and yanks hard on a fistful of dark hair before biting hard on the juncture between Bucky’s neck and shoulder. Bucky’s whole body quakes and he whines, thoughts gone hazy except for: yes. This. Yes. Yes. Yes.

The only thing that keeps him from kneeling down to the carpet is the knowledge that he is actively holding Steve up right at that moment. He nuzzles blindly, sighing into Steve’s neck and kneading gently at his ass: _“That’s my only game, dragule. No tricks, I promise – whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want it.”_

Steve sighs soft and needy, “Buck, Buck,” over his mouth. Claws at his chest with short, ragged fingernails – it all moves through Bucky like forks of lightning.

 _“Yours, dragule, I’m all yours,”_ he swears, flicking his tongue out to taste Steve’s lower lip.

“Stop, I’m gonna come, oh god, I’m gonna come,” Steve whispers, suddenly freezing from head to toe. He pants frantically, trying to catch his breath and get his cock under control at the same time. “I’m so sorry – Christ, look at your neck. This got way out of hand.”

Just moments ago, Bucky had a luscious little minx climbing him like a tree. Now, Steve is frozen in place and can barely stand to look him in the eye.

_Ah._

He knows this. He’s damn well felt it before.

“ _It’s all right, dragule. Whenever you want, I meant that.”_ Bucky strokes down his back, trying to soothe rather than entice. He’s pretty certain that he understands why Steve’s suddenly switched from aroused to ashamed – it used to happen to him, too. When people mock you for what you like, you start to expect it.

Like Steve, potential partners looked at Bucky and made certain assumptions about him. About his tastes and preferences. Big military man with a load of easy charm, who liked small pretty boys? Twinks dragged him into BDSM clubs assuming he already knew the whole scene and would be their perfect dom, one-night stands thought he’d be just the type to hold them down and fuck them rough, and on one memorable occasion, a business professional begged to be caned.

They were all shocked as hell when he flatly refused.

Bucky was accustomed to a certain level of violence, he’d never deny that. But he’d grown up watching the way his father treated his mother and he couldn’t stand the idea of becoming a man who did anything like that to his partners, even if they asked for it. Even when some were not any less skilled than he was, if not more a bit breakable.

There was also the fact that he was often required to hurt or kill people in a professional capacity – either as a sergeant in the army or an agent at SHIELD. Letting it into his sex life held no appeal for him. That only became truer once the Winter Soldier entered the picture. He simply couldn’t stomach the thought.

Around the same time he started the brief affair with Fitz, Natasha figured out where his sexual appetites leaned toward, and from the very beginning she was urging him to reconsider taking the relationship in that direction.

Because Fitz was already in love with Simmons, and Bucky’s type included more than a height and weight requirement. Bucky loved slender, pretty boys…who bossed him around.

Bucky wasn’t interested in being someone’s slave, he didn’t fancy strange roleplay, humiliation didn’t arouse him, but he liked to be…well, used, he supposed. He had certainly done all of those odd and kinky things before, because they made his partner happy. That was the part he really enjoyed, satisfying the person he was with in every way possible. Bucky’s hands, his mouth, his dick, all just existed for him to use for that purpose.

Even if Steve didn’t understand him, Bucky hadn’t been lying when he said it – he had no fancy tricks up sleeves, possessed no games or strategy: just whatever Steve wanted, _when_ ever he wanted, _how_ ever he wanted it.

There were probably a few more limitations now with the Winter Soldier in play, but they could cross that bridge when they came to it. If they came to it.

Bucky wondered how many times Steve had been mocked for getting rough like that, for ordering someone around in the heat of the moment. How many had gotten angry at him for having another, maybe slightly darker side? How many people had looked at him and assumed that when they got him to bed, he would be their sweet, docile plaything?

Oh, Bucky still found him sweet as hell. But as far as he was concerned, Steve was at his sweetest when he was being mean as a damn cobra. And he didn’t give two shits for docile –hell, _he’d_ rather be the plaything when it came down to it. God, the way he growls…no, the way he fuckin’ _bites_ …

_Okay, not helping the blue balls situation right now, let’s not think about that. Later. Hell, hell yes, later._

“I didn’t mean to be such a tease,” Steve mumbles into his neck. His fingers are still curled into his shirt.

Bucky makes shushing sounds and kisses the tips of his ears, still flushed nice and pink and Steve gasps. This is going to be so difficult – he can barely keep his hands off of Steve and he’s trying not to get them worked up again. Or still, since he damn sure hasn’t calmed down yet, and he can feel that Steve hasn’t either against his thigh. God, he wants to make the minx come.

“I wanna see you come,” Steve says, curling and uncurling his fingers like a cat kneading a blanket. “We can’t – god, I can’t…not when I can’t understand what you’re telling me, but I want to. So bad.”

Bucky groans, face pressed into Steve’s neck before pulling away, struck by a sudden inspiration. He cups Steve’s face to get his attention, then slides his hand down to his groin suggestively and makes an ‘I’m watching you’ gesture with the other hand. Then he takes Steve’s hand and hovers it over Steve’s own straining crotch, repeating the ‘watching’ gesture. “Oh!” Steve breathes. “We can…yeah. Yes. Alright. But not in here, okay?”

Bucky nods his agreement, wanting to nearly cry with relief that Steve had understood and no, he doesn’t want to do this in the living room either. This is the room where he and Clint and Natasha watch movies and complain about each other and listen to the news while they drink coffee half-asleep. He doesn’t need to think about watching Steve jerk himself off every time he’s here. That, and Natasha will truly and literally murder him if she finds out they got spunk all over her rug – which is an antique – or their couch, which is one of the few things in the apartment they’d sprung for brand new.

He leads Steve back down the hall past the dining room and into his own bedroom with the warmth of the purplish-brown walls. “Bed,” Steve orders gently. “You don’t need to be holding me up this time. 

They make out on the bed, slow and luxurious now that they are lying down. It helps that Steve is not trying to scramble for every bit of contact he can get before he reaches his limit and if he’s honest, he’s trying to hold back, be calmer and more in control this time. Steve is laying back against the pillows with Bucky laying across the bed at an angle. He’s on top in the technical sense, but isn’t resting any of his weight on Steve.

When Bucky starts moaning and shifting against him, Steve pulls away and whispers “You first. I wanna watch. Please?”

Bucky shudders, forehead resting upon his shoulder. Steve feels him nod before he sits back, slipping his belt off and dropping it over the side of the bed. His eyes are colorless in the dim light of the room, illuminated only by a few candles stolen on their way past the dining room, placed on the dresser across the room. Slow big band is still playing distantly from the living room.

The whole thing has the air of a dream for Steve, a hazy, wonderful vision concocted by a blissfully unaware brain.

Bucky’s eyes never leave his face, even as he unzips his pants and slides the tight fabric down the absolutely _stunning_ muscles of his thighs. The proud line of his cock ends in a large wet patch of fabric on his red boxer-briefs, a hint of the flushed thick head slipping out the top.

Steve’s mouth waters. “Your-your shirt,” he says hoarsely. “Open up your shirt.”

The jacket and tie were lost ages ago, leaving just the devastating line of his shoulders where his dress shirt drapes over them, and the gaping collar at the front where a series of scratches from Steve’s own nails show just above his pecs. Bucky opens the remaining buttons and lets the silk hang there, showing a view of mouth-watering abs with small glimpses of a brown nipple here and there.

Steve squeezes himself through his slacks, taking a moment until he’s sure he won’t actually go off right this moment. Bucky takes him in him with hungry eyes, watching and waiting. Waiting for him to give further instructions, he realizes. “Show me the way you do it yourself,” Steve murmurs, leaning forward to dot his jawline with kisses. “I wanna see the way you like it.”

Bucky inhales, a quavering sound that is loud in the quiet of the room and rests down on the bed next to him. Steve nudges next to him insistently, tucking himself into his side underneath the metal arm. The prosthetic feels marvelously cool against his heated skin and the position also allows him to watch Bucky’s flesh and blood hand pull the red briefs below his balls.

Steve tenses and shudders at the first slide of Bucky’s hand over his cock, whispering “Oh my god,” as though Bucky were stroking Steve instead of himself. “You look fantastic. Don’t stop. Please, Buck.”

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut, head thrown back and teeth gritted as he begins moving his fist over his aching flesh. This is far better than any fantasy he could have conjured. None of his wanking material comes even close to this. He passes a gentle caress over Steve’s slender side, moaning _“This is going to be over very quickly, gorgeous. Especially if you keep talking to me like that.”_

Steve does something worse – or better – than talking. He squirms against his side, pushing aside the scraps of his shirt draped over his stomach and begins stroking him just above the droplets of pre-come leaking over his fist. “Ohhhhh…” Steve moans, enraptured as he pets over his ribs and through his dark chest hair. “You’re so wet.”

Bucky chokes on his next breath as his hand increases the pace without his permission, giving his wrist a jerky twist just to torture himself. He doesn’t have the air for his usual chatter his brain too overwhelmed to come up with words in any of his available languages.

Steve begins kissing at the left side of his chest, warm moist breath fanning out over his nipples. Steve must know how hard his heart is pounding, must feel the way it tries to leave his ribcage behind. He seems curiously devoted to his self-appointed task, kissing eagerly at his pecs and rubbing slow circles over his belly. Bucky feels hot all over – from the soles of his feet to his tingling scalp, and the combined sensations rush over him all at once. Jerking himself off feels almost secondary to the experience at this point.

Then Steve sucks two of the metal fingers into his mouth.

Irrationally, his first thought is something like ‘ _Doesn’t that taste of motor oil?’_ Then the sensors transmit the slick feeling of Steve’s lips, the pressure of his hollowed cheeks, the wet glide of his tongue. There are no more thoughts after that because the circuitry connecting the arm with his nervous system somehow get tangled transmitting it from his fingers to his brain while the other hand is also moving over his cock, because if he didn’t know any better he’d swear Steve’s mouth was on his dick rather than his hand.

Steve laughs into his chest as Bucky throws back his head and his spine arches into a sharply defined curve, a powerful stretch of muscles that lifts both of their upper bodies off the mattress at the same time. “Stop holding back, Bucky.” A kiss on his left nipple, a curl of tongue over cool metal. “C’mon, _mishka_ , gimme!”

Another slow, deliberate suck on his fingers and Bucky is gone, gone, gone. _“Oh, fu-!”_  

“There you are, there you are,” Steve coos happily, running his fingers through Bucky’s hair, brushing the sweat-dampened strands away from his forehead. “Good boy. You were beautiful, Buck. So beautiful.”

Bucky is panting like he’s run a marathon. He doesn’t think he’s had an orgasm that powerful just from his own damn hand…ever, actually. Then again, he’s never done assisted masturbation before either. Admittedly, he wasn’t expecting Steve to stay on his side of the bed or even keep his hands to himself, but that was definitely a surprise. The puddle of come is cleaned off with the tissues from the bedside table, his shaky hands and Steve’s careful assistance. _“It’s your turn, dragule,”_ Bucky gasps, still not entirely connected to the earth yet. _“Let me see…”_

“Can’t understand you,” Steve reminds gently, resuming his place cuddled up beneath Bucky’s left arm.

Bucky tugs on his belt loops to get his point across.

Steve turns his flushed face into his neck and whispers “Give me a minute, alright? After that you deserve better than a ten second show.”

He feels the slight up-and-down of Steve taking deliberately slow and regular breaths, quiet puffs of air that he can hear and feel just below his ear. He rolls, adjusting his position so that rather than resting on his back with Steve curled beneath the left arm, Bucky is on his side face to face with him.

Bucky is quiet, giving Steve the time he needs, running his fingers slowly down the nobs of his spine. Even through the dress shirt – not the worn blue checked one, sadly – he can feel that it’s a little crooked just above his buttocks. Beneath his hands, Steve feels delicate and breakable and there is a tremor in Bucky’s hands he hopes goes unnoticed. These are hands that can crush skulls and break concrete, and Steve lets him hold his narrow form and cup his fragile ribs. He is terrified. He is honored. He thinks he might be in love. _“Beautiful boy,”_ he murmurs. _“I swear there is no star that can compete with you, zvezdochka.”_

Steve recognizes ‘beautiful boy’ in the sentence, but nothing else. The melting-ice softness of Bucky’s eyes and the tender way his hands hold Steve’s ribcage are more than sufficient to communicate, as far as he’s concerned. Again, he feels that sudden and irrational urge to succumb to tears, an impulse he thought he’d gotten rid of years ago. _This is what it’s like_ , he realizes. He’d wanted to know what it felt like to have a partner that touched him the way he’d seen Bucky handle that kitten, to be treated gently and with care. And he wants to cry because this feels something like love. Because… _I dunno what to do with this._

Crying wasn’t allowed. Since the day his mother passed, crying was never allowed, a rule Steve strictly enforced on himself. The most painful of breakups had been endured with a stony stoicism and dry eyes, even in private. Sam had once told him he found it a little frightening, the way Steve was able to shut himself down and block any displays of emotion to such a degree. It was…an old habit. A bad habit, he was beginning to see.

But he needed some way to show Bucky that this was important to him, that it meant something to Steve. (Like love? Maybe just a little something like love?) He wasn’t good with words, not the way he suspected Bucky would be if Steve could understand him, so he had to be willing to give him something else.

He strips off his shirt before he can give himself time to reconsider the idea, without quite looking Bucky in the eye. It’s useless to hide his blush, though. It extends all the way down his neck and onto his pale pigeon chest, the flush just as blotchy and unattractive as the one across his face. Oh god. For a wild moment, he wants to cover himself like a startled woman in a dressing room. But Steve, as has been reiterated by _many_ of the people in his life, is a stubborn little cuss and he continues undressing, pulling his nice dress slacks off and tossing them over the side of bed.

Bucky purrs something and slides his hands possessively over Steve’s hips, until he’s close enough to rest their foreheads together. He sucks at Steve’s neck, wet and hot, and rumbles in such a low voice Steve can’t even attempt to translate it. Well, and his brain feels like it’s melting out of his ears. _Oh, wow. Okay._

\- - -

 _“Oh, oh, look at you, you’re so pretty,”_ Bucky murmurs, palming Steve’s hips. His berries-and-cream blush spreads all the way down to his belly button and it makes Bucky want to lick him everywhere. He settles for keeping the firm hold on his hips and sucking on his neck, just below his ear. Bucky is triumphant and greedy when Steve goes weak all over for him, a quiet drawn-out moan hanging in the air. _“Stunning, just gorgeous.”_

Steve clings to him with both hands wrapped around his neck, still shuddering. Apparently, his neck and ears are both particularly sensitive. _This_ is what Bucky’s craved, what he’s missed for three years: honest pleasure, unguarded trust.

  _“Put your hand on your cock, baby. I wanna watch you lose your pretty head.”_ He leads Steve’s hand to the edge of his boxers to illustrate what he wants and Steve, thank god, catches on easily, shoving the fabric down those razorblade hips. God, he wants him bad. Steve is a little thicker than he would have guessed, but about average length and slightly curved and Bucky has to quickly remind himself that he does not have Steve’s permission to touch him yet.

Gasping, nerves still alight, the first stroke has Steve whimpering and tightening his grip on the hand curled around Bucky’s neck. Bucky nuzzles him, humming pleased noises to make his satisfaction obvious. He can feel the tension running through him, Steve’s muscles trembling, and Bucky decides to pay him back for all that maddening sugar he got when it was his turn. If Steve can torture him by giving a demonstration of his oral skills – on the fucking prosthetic! – then turnabout is only fair play, really.

Bucky sucks at his throat, nibbles his earlobes, and nips at the upper shell of his ears. Attention paid to these areas yields a beautiful set of ‘ah, ah, ah’s, in low tones that Bucky can feel all the way in his lower belly. “ _God, you’re sexy little piece. Are you gonna ‘ah-ah-ah’ for me when I suck you off, dragule? That’ll be as often as possible, if I get my way.”_

Steve is shivering from head to toe, and his knuckles lightly brush Bucky’s side with every jerk of his fist. Steve’s other hand is still gripping the back of his neck, his fingernails pinpricking into the flesh, nearly breaking the skin. Then Bucky does something he’s never previously experienced. Later, when Peggy is bullying him for details, he will swear on his life he can’t even accurately describe it.

Bucky slips his tongue into the whorl of his ear and whatever voodoo magic he performs there is something Steve can feels all the way down to his balls. Without his conscious control, his mouth drops open and a series of whimpers come out, nonsensical consonants that growing higher in pitch with every syllable. Steve can’t stop himself from coming if he tried – he spills over his own hand and onto Bucky’s bare belly, his clawed fingernails finally drawing blood and scraping tracks of skin off his back as Steve loses control of his muscles. Bucky makes a sound of delighted surprise.

 _“Oh, sweetheart, that’s beautiful.”_ When Steve is still struggling for air by the time it’s over, Bucky gets more concerned and strokes his back, breathing slow and steady as he holds Steve against his chest. _“Just breathe with me, baby, nice and slow with me. Just like that, dragule. I’ve gotcha, I’ve gotcha.”_

Steve finally gets control of his lungs, Bucky helps him get cleaned up with more judicious use of the tissues on the side table. His eyes feel heavy and Bucky is still holding him close, never pausing the soothing motions over his back. Steve makes an unhappy noise when Bucky starts moving, but as he’s lowered to the bed and Bucky settles in beside him, he mewls and shifts close enough to bury his face in his neck.

Steve swears he’s only going to rest his eyes for a few moments, but he’s sleepy and sated and the bed smells of Bucky. The winter’s night scents of metal, ice, pine, and a hint of male musk almost suggestive of fur. Part of him forgets that he’s still mostly naked but when he feels his shivering, Bucky drags the comforter over them.

Steve is pulled down into a strange dream of ice castles and blood bright upon the snow.

Hours later, he is groggy and warm and he stretches with a sleepy sound, thinking that he should get up and take his meds. But when he opens his eyes, it takes him several long, tense moments to recognize where he is.

Arms tighten around him from behind. A rough voice murmurs right into his good ear. “Mm…don’t get up, baby. Still wanna hold you.”

His heart beats fast in his chest. The voice is a gravelly rumble with a Brooklyn edge to it. “Bucky?”

He still sounds hoarse and sleepy. “I’m here, babydoll, I got you.”

Steve has chills. _I got you._ Definitely native to Brooklyn.

“Bucky…Bucky, I can understand you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 9/3/2018
> 
> Still garbage.


	4. the rest complains of cares to come

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I feel I must point out that I didn't mean for this to become so filthy, but Bucky clearly has other, more urgent plans. Are you sick of the fluff yet because honestly this barely getting started.

“Bucky…Bucky, I can understand you.”

“Then tell me I can suck you, because you look _delicious,_ ” Bucky says on autopilot, expecting his stupid brain to fuck up the sentence. It doesn’t, probably because he’s still not entirely awake.

Steve squirms against him, stammering “Uh, I can’t actually…again, I mean…I’m-I take a lot of medications…”

Steve is a bit slow to rise anyway and after last night, he doubts between his heart, his lungs, and the number of medications he’s been taking he’d be able to maintain another erection within the next twenty-four hours.

“Something to look forward to then,” Bucky murmurs, soft with sleep, eyes dropping closed again. He pushes his face, fuzzy with his perpetual five o’clock shadow, deeper into Steve’s neck and makes a happy noise. Steve has the musky smell of a sleeping body and it floods his brain with endorphins. “Go back to sleep, dollface.”

Steve’s nose wrinkles, despite the shudder of pleasure that travels down his spine from the sensation of Bucky’s facial hair scraping over his neck and shoulder. “ _Dollface_?” he says with disgust, pushing at his arm. “C’mon, Bucky, lemme up. I hafta pee.”

Bucky, unhappy that his companion won’t stay, grumbles but lets him go after a wet, scratchy kiss to his shoulder. Steve grabs a shirt draped over the dresser on the way to cover his obvious nudity. The damn thing drapes down to mid-thigh.

Steve finds himself staring in the bathroom mirror after a night of sleeping in Bucky’s bed for the second time this week. This time, his neck is covered in the perfectly round marks of love-bites, and there are the shadows of finger-shaped bruises on his upper right thigh from Bucky holding him up. He bruises like a peach, so it isn’t really much of a surprise.

He shivers, chilly and miserable now that the warmth of the sheets – and its other occupant – has disappeared. It’s still dark outside, more night than morning, really. He could quietly collect his clothes, escape downstairs, and call a cab to pick him up.

But why? Why would Steve do that when he has Bucky, apparently happy to cuddle, waiting back in his soft warm bed, calling him _dollface_ of all things.

Why would he vanish in the dark of the night, doing an especially long walk of shame, to go home to a freezing apartment so that he can crawl into his empty bed where the cold makes his joints ache, and feel inadequate and self-conscious about the things he did to and with Bucky. He already knows he will start second-guessing himself, doubts crowding in while he is alone, and swearing the night couldn’t possibly be as good as he remembers.

Biting his lips, he goes back to the bedroom and slips beneath the covers. Bucky, still not completely awake, mumbles “You’re cold,” and pulls him in, burrowing Steve in the comforter and his heavy limbs. Steve shivers again as Bucky cuddles against his back, happy to nuzzle him once more. “C’mere. I gotcha, dollface.”

Steve feels exhaustion tugging on him again, but his stubborn nature makes him ask “Why dollface?”

Bucky hums. “Because you are. Gotta face like a little china doll. Pretty thing.” Before he really builds up a head of steam about that comment, he adds, “Hardly believed you were real and then you open your mouth and it’s twice as good.”

Steve laughs, turning his face to the pillow. Arguably the things that come out of his mouth are among his least attractive features. He knows he’s pushy. Bossy. Stubborn. He traces his fingers over both hands, one made of cool alloy plates and the other hot flesh and strong bone. His heart is a rabbit racing through the woods, leaping around in a mad frenzy. Bucky presses those hands to his chest, as though he can keep it in place with just the force of his touch. Steve holds his hands there and grins against the pillowcase, murmuring “You’re half-asleep, aren’t you?”

He feels the mountain that is Bucky breath in, a heaving motion that is shockingly soothing. Bucky rubs his hand tenderly over the narrow bones of Steve’s sternum and cuddles closer. “Mhm.”

Blurry-eyed and tired, Steve lets himself sink into the feeling of cared for, of being _cherished_ , and falls back down the well of sleep with him.

\- - -

When he wakes up for real later that morning, Bucky has his arms full of sleepy blonde and he is a very happy man. Steve is drooling on the opposite pillow, wheezing softly with each breath and clinging to Bucky’s waist.

Somewhere in the nighttime, Steve had rolled over to face him, burrowing into the shelter provided by his warm, heavy limbs. Bucky is starving, but he’d rather stay here with his tiny octopus and bask in the contact – though no longer as much skin to skin, since Steve now appears to be wearing the t-shirt that lives on his dresser as Bucky’s version of pajamas. Which is pretty fucking adorable, to be honest. It’s nearly large enough on him to be worn as a dress, and so oversized across the neckline that it shows Steve’s slender collarbones along with both pale shoulders and suddenly Bucky is _also_ drooling into the pillow.

He noses along Steve’s white neck, licking gently at the marks he’d left there last night. Steve mewls and moans sleepily “Wah-?”

Bucky kisses several freckles along the side of his neck and murmurs “ _Dobroye utro, Stepan.”_

“G-good morning, Buck. You, hm, you remember what I said?” Steve is trying to speak, but he’s panting lightly. His neck is sensitive, damn it, and Bucky has a good memory. “About-about being on medication?”

 _“Doesn’t mean I can’t make you feel nice.”_ He pulls away, cupping Steve’s jaw. God, his eyes are so blue. There are barren skies roaring over the wilds of Siberia that wish they could be so blue. “ _Do you want me to stop?”_

Steve doesn’t catch more than ‘stop’ and he can guess what Bucky means when he says ‘stop’ in a questioning voice, and he takes a moment to consider his answer carefully. Bucky doesn’t seem bothered by the idea, nor does he seem to expect that he’ll be getting his dick wet. Instead he waits for Steve’s answer, patiently stroking his jaw with a thumb. “No,” he says quietly “You don’t have to stop. Just…no farther than last night, okay?”

No hands or mouths near the genitals. Understood.

Bucky hums in agreement and kisses him slowly, morning breath be damned because this is so fucking personal, and once again Steve has displayed an unbelievable amount of trust. He can’t get enough of Steve’s lovely mouth – it’s unbelievably lush, soft and pink – and Bucky groans when Steve finally relaxes into it and threads his fingers through Bucky’s hair.

He’s already weak and shaky when his cock, as awake as the rest of him, slides into the crease of Steve’s bare thigh, soft and warm with their body heat. “ _My beautiful boy. You can push me off if this isn’t okay.”_

Steve bites his lip because again, the only part of that he can translate for himself is ‘beautiful boy’. He finds himself trailing fingers curiously down the long expanse of muscles that make up Bucky’s broad back. Discovers the contrast of his shoulders, the smooth sculpture of his flanks, and ends the exploration by cupping his buttocks and thinks: _Oh my god, I went to bed with Adonis. If Adonis were from Romania, went to war, and occasionally spoke English, but only like an insanely hot Brooklyn dockworker._

He squeezes the flesh filling his palms and pulls Bucky in, enticing him to keep moving with a gentle roll of the hips, letting his cock slide damp and hard over the silky skin. Steve won’t let himself think about his nerves, but he’s eager for Bucky to hurry this along so he won’t feel so…exposed.

Bucky moans, shuddering as he gives in to Steve’s silent demands. In a way, the experience is even more intense than last night. Now he has Steve directly beneath him. Steve, with his wet swollen mouth and hazy eyes, who gulps on quiet moans and sighs as Bucky nudges his soft cock with his thigh to provide easy friction.

The image is so good, he buries his face in Steve’s neck, eyes tightly shut, hips still hitching slowly. _“Baby, oh, babydoll,”_ he groans. _“So good to me, you’re so good to me, baby.”_

Steve feels achingly vulnerable and small. Part of that is the position – he usually prefers to be on top to avoid that, especially with newer partners, and part of it is his current predicament. He just isn’t physically capable of getting hard again so soon after the last time, and his own feelings of vulnerability are urging him to make Bucky stop or to hurry the hell up and finish. His traitorous brain begins whispering his inadequacies to him when Bucky slips his own shirt over Steve’s head, baring his narrow chest to the scrutiny of his gaze.

But the contact does feel nice. And after Steve voiced his concerns, Bucky wasn’t bothered or discouraged, and he seems to feel that the lack of erection response is no reason to ignore Steve’s cock.

It also helps that Bucky is shaking. Literally, quaking above him from some simple frottage and intense making out. His breathing is ragged, and the desire filling his darkened eyes in the dim room is unmistakable.

Then Bucky pauses, supporting his weight on his elbows and knees so that doesn’t crush Steve underneath him, and reaches into the nightstand for a bottle of lube, which he drizzles unceremoniously over his own dick, grimacing at the cold. It makes the way their bodies slide together a slick, gloriously heated movement that makes them both bite their lips and breathe quickly together.

Steve removes his hands from that magnificent ass so that he can get his legs around Bucky’s waist. A gentle scrape of fingernails over nipples gets him a sharp jerk of the hips and a quiet growl, Steve looking up at him with an angelic smile, close enough to feel each exhale. Bucky slides his hands beneath his back to support the way Steve’s hips arch. The change in the angle results in their cocks sliding together and twined so closely, Steve can hear the way it makes Bucky moan under his breath.

Steve slips his arms around his shoulders, kisses his neck and face, letting himself relax into the quiet and the motion. He’s finding his way into this hypnotic intimacy, and it seems less scary by the minute.

 _“Eto khorosho?”_ Bucky whispers, eyelashes lowered, brushing their mouths together softly.

‘Eto’…Natasha went over that with him. _That or it or this?_ Steve thought nonsensically, struggling to think through the path Bucky was making from his lips down over to his neck. Finally, his brain came back with Peggy’s voice saying **“ _Kor-esh-oh. It means ‘good’ or ‘fine’. As in ‘on khorosho’ – ‘He is good’.”_**

_‘Eto khorosho?’_

_‘Is it good?’_  

“Yes, oh, yes, Buck,” he groans, arching deeper into Bucky’s hands and murmuring “ _Khorosho, mishka, khorosho.”_

 _“Stea, stea,”_ Bucky whispers into his neck. _“My little star. Wanna make you sigh some more. Think I’m goin’ crazy – I can’t get enough of you…”_

 _Stea_. That was another word Bucky often used to refer to him. He assumed that it was an alternative nickname for his own name as it did sound a lot like ‘Steve’ – his hazy mind filed it away to ask Natasha about later, if he wasn’t able coax Bucky back into English sometime soon.

It is the last coherent thought he forces himself into having. As agonizing as the slow rhythm Bucky set is, it feels so luxuriously exquisite that it seems to take away all his sanity. They kiss until their lips tingle and the inner aggression finally comes out, Steve losing the last of his mind with the meeting of their mouths over and over and the way Bucky groans into him, deep and hungry.

“Don’t stop, don’t you dare stop,” he says raggedly, following the syrup-slow beat with his own hips. He does not increase the pace, but Steve’s fingernails hook into his shoulders and dig in with ferocity. He bites at his neck and chest until it will bruise. Steve sinks his teeth into the generous muscles of his pectorals and Bucky throws his head back, pushing more of his weight into each thrust.

He doesn’t know how they’ll ever get to having sex – they’ve only progressed to frotting and Steve feels like he’s going to die right now.

Bucky drops his head onto Steve’s shoulder, his hips steady and desperate, kissing frantically at his neck. Shocked, Steve gasps “Oh, oh, god. Buck. I actually think…I think I’m close…”

The orgasm is almost painful it’s so good – it’s coaxed out so slowly that it seems to last an eternity. He’d hadn’t even realized that was possible without getting hard first.

Between their heaving chests is a wet mess of lube and fresh jizz. Bucky feels the skin on his back breaking open and is mesmerized by Steve’s wide eyes and gasping mouth. He shudders harder than ever at the sight, hides his face again, and chokes out _“Stea-stea…mogu il konchit? Pozhaluysta?”_

After his first visit to the apartment, Clint had seen fit to slip him a list of helpfully Romanized words and upon Steve’s questioning look said “Just google ‘em. Trust me – Natasha is too formal to teach you any of those and you don’t seem like the type to want me to sit down and explain them to you.” Because he was curious, he did google it. The entire list was nothing but swear words and vulgarities.

And Clint’s list is why there is one word of that Steve can successfully translate – _konchit_. Ejaculate.

 _‘_ _ ejaculate?’ What even…?_ Steve wonders.

Then Bucky repeats himself, whining rather pathetically against his skin. _“Please, stea. Please, can I come?”_

There it is again. _Konchit_ , a verb. He thinks _pozhaluysta_ is ‘please’, and he’s pretty sure there’s a personal pronoun somewhere in there.

_Please. I. Come? Oh. OH!_

_Please, can I come?_

Steve has often felt broken and trapped and sometimes even monstrous with someone else in bed, but Bucky is crouched above him, quivering with anticipation. This big fierce soldier who is easily twice his size and can knock men unconscious with a single blow. Who calls him ‘darling’ and actually enjoys the merciless way Steve bites him and pulls his hair. _Oh god. He could break me in half at any moment, but…he does whatever I ask._

“No,” he breathes and Bucky freezes. Steve inhales, feeling the sudden frisson of fear that encompasses Bucky’s body language. Bucky is frozen in place and Steve is reminded of a hunting dog who waits for the whistle of his master. _Waiting for me. Because I’m the one who gives him…Oh god._ “No, not until I say.”

He caresses Bucky’s heaving flanks, trying to calm and steady them both.

“Give me the lube,” he husks and bites down a smile as Bucky scrambles to obey him.

With a little trepidation – though admittedly not as much as he’d started this adventure with – Steve turns onto his front, smearing his thighs with a good coating of slick from the nearly empty bottle.  

A glance over his shoulder tells him that Bucky is staring, star-struck and open mouthed at the picture Steve presents: sweaty and naked, ass up on the bed, skinny hips arched and slicked up thighs pressed together. Flushing wildly, he attempts a seductive sway of his rear and says “C’mon, Buck. Show me how you’d do it. Fuck me.”

Bucky makes another helpless, pathetic noise and drapes his broad body over Steve’s back. Encompassing, but as always without leaning too much of his weight down. He knows that Steve is not as delicately made as he looks, but Bucky possesses both great force and exceptional skill and that means he can’t ever afford to be careless with his strength.

He presses his face to Steve’s shoulder, the bones of which stretch his skin tightly across his pale smooth back and curve against Bucky’s cheek. Bucky tightens his right arm around Steve’s waist, eyes shut tight, holding the blonde’s smaller body against him like a touchstone. The first slide of his dick between those smooth sweet thighs has Bucky gritting his teeth hard and desperately sobbing into Steve’s shoulder.

Steve has already told him that he doesn’t have permission to finish and he will do all he can not to disobey.

 _“Your skin is silk,”_ he chokes, trying to get air with each slow thrust. _“Your mouth is velvet.”_ He kisses whatever skin is front of him, blind to everything around him. _“Your eyes…”_ Bucky moans loudly, mouth dropping open as Steve squeezes his thighs harder around his cock. _“Fuck, oh, fuck – your eyes are-are jewels. Comoara...please, my treasure, let me finish!”_

“Fuck me, baby,” Steve hisses, hot beneath his oversensitive skin. It feels stretched too tight for the fizzing in his blood. He has no desire or ability to come again, but he feels intoxicated with this power Bucky has given him, with the weakness Bucky sees and doesn’t flinch from. He feels the steady stream of pre-come smearing over his thighs and wants Bucky fiercely, wants to hold his heart in his palm and keep it like a greedy miser. He arches the curve of his hips into a steeper angle. “Show me you want it.”

 _“I want it,”_ Bucky growls. He can feel Steve’s ribs expand beneath him, and the heart-stopping curves of his ass. _“Want you. Your little heart-shaped ass and your big, gorgeous bedroom eyes. Your angel face and that dark mind you’re so scared of. Give. It. To. Me.”_

When he bucks against him, Steve can feel the restrained power that goes through Bucky’s entire being. The hot cock sliding between his legs feel unbearably intimate and close. Naked, in a way that has nothing to do with the clothes they’re not wearing. “Bucky, oh, _mishka_ , it’s so good,” he sighs, meaning it. “You’re so good, baby. Come when you want to.”

Bucky presses himself along Steve’s back, holding him in place as he desperately fucks his thighs. _“St-stea,”_ he gasps, nosing at Steve’s hair. He stills, muscles gone tight. “Steve, oh, oh, Steve…”

Steve gasps along with him, the heat of fresh semen painting the expanse of his legs and lower belly and he squeezes his thighs a little more to milk the last drops from Bucky’s tense body. He can feel the way Bucky groans, feel the sound climbing his chest and vibrate against his own back.

He yelps and then giggles when Bucky pulls them both into a sitting position and nuzzles at Steve, kissing his hair and his temples.

“Was that acceptable?” he says, still laughing slightly.

Bucky bites his ear in retaliation and then chuckles at the way Steve jumps and squeaks. “ _All right, you filthy little minx. We both need a shower.”_

Steve understands what Bucky wants when he holds up a towel and gestures to the bedroom door. He’s not entirely surprised when Bucky doesn’t bother putting on any clothes, but he himself throws the borrowed t-shirt back on, spunk and all, earning a sloe-eyed glance from Bucky that tells him he should be feeling _very_ secure about whether or not the sex in this relationship is any good from the other end.

He _is_ entirely surprised when he leaves the bedroom. “Jesus Christ!”

Clint comes out of the other bedroom in the apartment with Lucky on a leash, straining on the lead and scrabbling at the floorboards, whining in his eagerness to get outside. Clint is flipping on a pair of shades while whistling merrily and extremely off-tune. Steve freezes in mortification just outside the door. He’s wearing nothing but a large shirt, a healthy collection of drying semen, and a loose necklace of love-bites. Bucky is, pun not intended, buck naked – which would be bad enough, except that in the better lighting of the hallway, it’s obvious what they’ve been doing just from looking at Bucky, state of dress (or undress) aside. His upper body is covered in scratches, love-bites, and the clear impression of teeth marks.

“Nice,” Clint grins, giving them a cheesy thumbs-up. If he’s bothered by their various stages of undress, he doesn’t look it. “I’m exiled until I come back from Jean’s Bakery with that coconut mango thing Tasha likes. Demands? Requests?”

There’s a long pause, and then Steve realizes that Clint is actually talking to him. Well, of course he is – Clint would already know what Bucky wants. This might be the most awkward conversation of his life. “Um…not really? Nothing with strawberries,” he adds quickly “I’m allergic to them.”

"Alright, I’ll be back in twenty,” he says cheerfully. “Oh, and congratulations, Barnes – the f word, awkward morning afters, _and_ wild sex all on the first date. You’ve finally found your soulmate. God help us all.”

Bucky grumbles something distinctly naughty – and anatomically unlikely, if not impossible – as Clint walks away, still heckling Bucky on his way out the door. “Yeah, but everybody knows I’m a human disaster, Barnes! What’s your excuse?!”

They can hear him babbling baby-talk to Lucky all the way to the bottom of the stairwell, and then cursing colorfully when he trips down the last step.

\- - -

“So. That…happened,” Steve says in a strangled tone.

They stare at each other for several seconds before they both break at the same moment, laughing until they’re both crying, holding each other upright as they giggle wildly into each other’s shoulder.

 _“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,”_ Bucky gasps through his laughter. _“He’s an idiot.”_

“He is,” Steve agrees, wiping tears away as they stumble into the bathroom, still giggling like hyenas. “He’s an idiot, but you love him that way, right?”

 _“Da,”_ Bucky says, tilting his head to look at Steve as he catches his breath. Most people were either annoyed or disturbed by his relationship to Clint. Even Natasha thought they were nuts at first – well, now she still thinks they’re nuts, but she loves them too much to actively plot their death.

Then Steve grimaces and says “Please turn on the shower now. Some of this is starting to flake off.”

And Bucky laughs and kisses his cheek before twisting the knob on. He’s glad that Steve has saved him from his own stupid mouth, because he almost said ‘And I love you that way, too.’

Yikes.

Bucky is careful not to touch the water until he can see steam rising off the tiles. Steve is naked (unarmed, unarmored) and he’s also roughly the same size as Simmons, so the odds of him lashing out even during a flashback are low, but he’s not taking any chances. And truth be told, he’s lost his taste for cold showers. Before he’d made any real progress with Bruce and Clint and Natasha had to puzzle out his triggers unassisted, Natasha would send him to take a shower only to find him naked and half-wet, curled up into a far corner of the bathroom while the shower ran a continuous spray of icy cold water. Of course, that was an improvement – in the days Clint cared for him by himself, he would lead him into the room only for Bucky to disappear into himself by the time the bathroom door was shut.

But now the air is warm and humid and Steve blinks droplets of water from his big, blue eyes, asking “Can I…do you want me to wash your back for you?” He adds “Those don’t hurt a lot, do they?”

It takes a moment for him to figure out what Steve is asking about, then he realizes that he is feeling guilty about the scratches and pinpricks across Bucky’s back. He stifles a laugh and shakes his head. He’s been accustomed to enduring a great deal of pain since he was a child and his father would sometimes use the belt, and he was a young man who played a lot of sports and rough-housed a great deal. And that was _before_ joining the army and becoming an agent.

Steve does wash his back with a curiously focused devotion that makes Bucky want to melt into the tiles. He ends up leaning against a wall while Steve’s thin fingers massage his back with a cleverness that has him struggling not to fall asleep again. _“Amazing, you are amazing, angel,”_ he groans. _“Christ that feels good.”_

He can hear Steve laughing at him, and frankly he can laugh it up because Bucky is totally the one getting the best end of this deal. When he’s been reduced to a large pile of shapeless goo and the soap is washed off, Steve kisses his shoulder blades and has him turn around. He’s still smiling when he says “Should I get your hair?”

It’s absolutely urgent that he kiss that smile, so he does, which gets Steve giggling some more and of course he has to taste that on his lips, too. Shampoo does eventually come into contact with his hair and Steve makes pleased noises when he combs his fingers through the unruly strands. He rinses off and then uses a small bristle nailbrush to scrub between the plates of the metal arm. Bucky prefers to do this part himself – the machinery is delicate and hard to clean, and if it isn’t done thoroughly, it can cause a lot of problems with the mechanisms.

“That’s really cool,” he observes, and Bucky shrugs, grabbing the bottle of body wash and gestures to Steve, raising his brows. “Oh, is it my turn?”

Bucky nods and gives him a playful leer.

He takes his time, because he isn’t completely blind or insensitive. He’s taken notice of the small signs that Steve is less than comfortable with himself. Bucky can understand that sentiment to some extant – he looks in the mirror and finds himself monstrous, some mornings – even if he dislikes the idea of Steve feeling the same thing.

He can’t get enough of this lithe, lean little body and it breaks his heart that Steve might find it inferior in any way.

Steve inhales sharply as Bucky lathers up and moves over his hips, his belly, and up his chest. He kisses Steve’s temple while gently holding the expanse of his ribcage, noting the tenseness in Steve’s shoulders when his fingers brush against his nipples, the rigidity of his body when Bucky’s hands approaches them. _Okay, we’re definitely talking about that later._

He coaxes Steve into turning around to face him, murmurs _“You’re beautiful”_ as his fingertips travel down the slightly crooked line of his spine.

“You’re sappy,” Steve whispers, rising on his toes to kiss Bucky with a grin on his lips, curling his arms around Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky’s hands slip down his back to cup his ass automatically, once again supporting his weight and happily copping a feel at the same time. The situation had an almost dreamlike quality, because it was so bizarrely outside of any expectations Steve had started this relationship with. _“_ Nothing but a great big sap, _dragule.”_

Bucky’s eyes widen, hands tightening briefly on his buttocks. _“Menya?”_

 _Me?_ It’s heartbreaking, how hopeful and uncertain he looks.

Steve again has the strange desire to have Bucky’s heart be a physical, tangible thing outside of the organ keeping him alive, so he that can hold it in his hands. So that Bucky could see how jealously Steve would like to guard it. How greedily he would cherish it.

But that’s kind of insane, so Steve can’t actually say that.

 _“Da. Vam, durak.” Yes. You, you dope._ He nuzzles Bucky’s chest, pressing a brief kiss over his fast-beating heart. _“_ You’re _dragul meu,_ baby.”

With a delighted sound, Bucky lifts him off his feet, his back against the tiles, and gives him a scorching kiss. Steve is panting as they break apart. “Are you trying to seduce me again, _mishka_?”

Bucky shakes his head and bows to bury his face in Steve’s neck – apparently his favorite place, not that Steve really minds. Tenderly, he cradles Bucky’s skull, murmuring “Natasha was right – you’re a marshmallow.” Steve scratches gently at his scalp, pressing kisses to the dark strands of hair. “ _Mishka_. My big soft teddy bear.”

Exhaling shakily, Bucky feels light-headed and weak, even as his hold on Steve is still rock solid. _“I am. I am yours, sweetheart.”_ He swallows down a wave of anxiety and self-consciousness. Steve understands. He doesn’t know how or why, but Steve does understand. He rubs his jaw over Steve’s collar, softly biting him with the lightest pressure, rumbling _“Your mishka.”_

They make-out in the shower until the water starts cooling down, passionately necking against the tile. By the time they exit the shower, Steve has to rush to wash his hair before he ends up in ice water and his mouth is swollen with the contact. Bucky can’t seem to resist leaning down to peck him on the lips every few moments as they dry themselves off and slide their pants back on. Bucky dries Steve’s hair into a fluffy yellow cloud that makes him grin so widely that Steve pulls him down to the bed and resumes their activity from the shower all over again. Steve straddles his naked waist and holds his jaw, sucking lightly on tongue, humming in pleasure at all the warm muscle beneath him. Bucky wraps him in his arms to hold closer, hugging Steve’s waist. He chuckles, lips pulling into a smile, and Steve feels his own mouth curling in answer.

Steve can’t remember the last time he’s only kissed someone. He isn’t even sure he did this as a teenager – just kissing, full of heat and passion, but with no urgency, knowing that they won’t go any farther this morning. He should get tired of it, but the feeling of Bucky’s smile and the easy way they fall in and out of the process always keep him coming back for more.

Clint finally interrupts them by barging into the room, while Steve is still on top, moaning softly as Bucky nibbles his bottom lip. He’s surrounded by the smell of sugar and successfully manages to spill coffee all over himself. “Ow, ow, fuck! Aw, coffee, no!” Clint whines. “Natasha says you need to stop sucking face long enough to eat with us, and she also says ‘you’re welcome’, for some reason? I dunno, man, she wants to talk to you.”

Natasha is apparently not far away, because they can hear responding her from the hallway. “That can wait until after we eat breakfast. Clint! I told you _not_ take it out of the dining room! If that gets into the carpet, you’re sleeping on the couch!”

“It’ll be fine, honey, we bought the washable ones for a reason!”

\- - -

Steve is not quite sure how to navigate this yet. He feels awkward and out of place, but Bucky’s roommates – his family, Steve supposes – seem to feel that this is just another Saturday morning. He puts on a shirt and follows Bucky out into the apartment. Clint is missing and Natasha is waiting at the head of the table with a teacup beside her elbow and a familiar black box in her lap, shiny with lacquer. “Hey, that’s mine!” he blurts out. “Um – how exactly did you get that?”

“Sam was pretty sure you were going to forget to call him,” she responds serenely. “So, he texted me instead and when I mentioned that you were staying over, he wanted to make sure you had your medications. Speaking of which–” She pulls the teacup and its matching saucer closer to her, the telltale rattling it makes hinting at its contents. Natasha hands first the saucer, containing seven different pills, out to Bucky and then the teacup, which has been filled with water. Still serene, she murmurs “Time for breakfast, James.”

Her face is strange, and Steve should know – by now, he’s spent literal hours sketching the different expressions that pass over her features. Instead of the almost lethal composure at which her face usually rests, there is an air of studied calm in her.

Bucky tips the entire contents of the saucer into his mouth and gulps down the water. He then calmly opens his jaws wider, allowing Natasha to examine the inside of his mouth. Using a quick, efficient motion, she slips a finger beneath his tongue and swipes both sides, nodding with that careful serenity, her smile becoming slightly pained. “Sorry, do you need to take yours now or later?”

“Some now and some later,” he says, accepting her offer of coffee and idly adding sugar. Steve hopes that his moment of brief horror hasn’t shown on his face. He resists the urge to add ‘Either way, you’re not putting your fucking fingers in my mouth’, because Natasha seems unhappy enough and it would probably hurt Bucky’s feelings. Steve has been required to show evidence that he’s taken his anti-depressants in the past, when he was a newly orphaned seventeen-year-old in a psychiatric facility, but that was a visual examination done by an impersonal nurse, not his best fucking friend feeling around under his tongue.

Generally, they don’t make people do that unless they have a history of hiding the tendency to not take them.

Natasha types something out on her phone – ‘JB a.m. RX’ – before calling out to Clint: “We’re eating with or without you!”

The donuts are delicious and the coffee is also good (“Because I made it. Clint would’ve had us drinking jet fuel sludge.”) and when they’ve finished, Natasha says “I’d like to talk to both of you, together, for a few minutes. Let’s go out into the living room. Clint, could bring Liho out for me – she’s probably in her usual hiding place.”

“Oh, under the bed, right?” Clint says brightly.

Natasha sits down in the armchair and gestures for them to take the couch, looking perfectly comfortable. Bucky narrows his eyes. There’s a tension in her that someone who knew her less well would never notice. “I was hoping to put this off longer, but…” Her eyes crinkle with a real smile. “How did the first date go?”

Steve’s mouth twitches reluctantly. “Well, he’s a bit handsy, but I think I might keep him.”

Bucky snorts, muttering _“You’re stuck with me after that shower, doll.”_

“Yes, I thought you’d say that,” Natasha agrees, green gaze flickering between the two of them. “James, do I have your permission to discuss your psychiatric care?”

Bucky frowns. _“Where are you going with this, Natashenka?”_

_“You forgot the tape, Yasha. You didn’t turn it off, did you?”_

He blanches and Clint enters the room, carrying the tiny rescued cat in one hand and what looks like a handheld recording device in the other. He gently places the device on the coffee table and drops Liho on the armrest next to Natasha. “Still on when I got there, just like you said.”

“Not ready yet, Clint. James, do I have your permission?”

“ _Da.”_ Bucky answers reluctantly.

“You’re probably confused and maybe a little alarmed,” Natasha says to Steve. “As you’ve already figured out, this a remote digital recording device, and it lives in James’ room. Normally, we use it to examine audio of his dreams together, which is required by his therapist as part of his mental health routine. It’s been recording everything in the room since nine o’clock yesterday evening.”

She pauses, noting that Steve is now sheet white. “I sincerely apologize if you feel your privacy has been violated – it honestly didn’t occur to me that James may not have turned it off until a few hours ago when I was opening up the restaurant. I have no intention of listening to the recording, but I know that James is a bit…chatty.”

Clint makes an amused sound. “Please, he doesn’t know how stop talking, even when he’s going off his head.”

Steve and Bucky both blush furiously and Natasha resists the inclination to grin. Clint doesn’t.

“If you would like,” she continues smoothly. “I’m sure he would love to translate some of it for you, while you’re gone. I’m assuming you didn’t understand most of his speech, right?”

 _“More than I would’ve guessed,”_ Bucky says fairly.

“He did speak English,” Steve says suddenly. “I got up to use the bathroom just before two a.m., and he was half asleep. We had a short conversation before and after I left the room and he was speaking English then.”

Natasha smile was wide and approving. “Excellent, so you’ve tricked his brain into letting you in for a little while. That’s terrific, Steve.”

“I would love to hear the translation,” he tells Bucky, reaching over to squeeze his hand. “Please?”

 _“I’ll give you the translation, but I’ll do it my way,”_ Bucky says firmly. _“Tell Steve I’ll give him audio with the English versions attached.”_

Steve smiles when Clint dutifully interprets. “You can give it to me on our second date. Lunch at the Met, this Monday. And don’t forget to say ‘hello’ this time, _mishka.”_

_“Yes, sir.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 9/3/2018
> 
> Trash. Utter garbage.


	5. but could youth last

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brief mention of a violation of consent by a past partner. Nothing so graphic, but it is discussed.
> 
> Also, in case you somehow managed to miss the not so subtle hints, 'trust' is kind of one of the main themes throughout this story and will continue on through this chapter.

Saturday December 16th, 2017 – Evening

The three of them are sitting on Natasha’s prized Persian rug, backs against the sofa, watching the national figure skating championships on DVR.

Clint sits in the middle, hoarding the bowl of popcorn in his lap. If he doesn’t guard it carefully, Natasha will grab handfuls to throw at the television whenever the hosts begin fawning over a particular skater too much. Natasha is holding the remote hostage in retaliation – Clint will fast forward through the program if someone began making multiple mistakes, claiming that it was too humiliating to watch. Natasha argues that the humiliation is half of the fun, because she is a terrifying Russian ballerina trained in dancing and murder. 

“So, you’re gonna tell us all about boning your hot blonde, right?” Clint says, throwing popcorn across the room for the eager Lucky to catch. Natasha elbows him. Hard. “Ow – c’mon, it isn’t like we haven’t done it before. The only reason I’ve never told him about _our_ sex life is because he was on the same team with both of us.”

Natasha is silent, because they all know that this isn’t entirely true.

She has to admit that she doesn’t know men who talk about their sex lives the way Clint and Bucky do, and Clint _has_ talked about their sex life with Bucky a few times in the past – like after third time, when Clint had accidentally triggered a terrible memory of hers. Just that brief glimpse of her emotional pain had made him sick with guilt. He’d gone to Bucky and spilled everything, like a sinner who goes to confession to receive absolution. That was usually the context in which those conversations happened, which is probably the reason she’s never bothered to get properly angry over it. If Clint can’t talk to his best friend, who can he talk to?

And she’s done it herself, in more of a roundabout manner. Usually when she was in a panic about how emotionally invested she was in Clint, in both of them to a certain extent.

(Like after the third time, and Bucky found her pacing beside a snow bank, white-faced and trying to pretend it was the cold that was making her tremble. She hadn’t realized she was crying until he’d pulled out one of his old-fashioned handkerchiefs and handed it to her. Later, she would appreciate that he hadn’t tried to do it himself, hadn’t tried to clean her up.)

Liho, stealthy as the little black phantom she is, has snuck into Bucky’s lap somehow and he pets her absently. He shifts uncertainly. “It was…good?”

Clint lets out a bark of laughter and even Natasha’s brows are raised. “Buddy, no, you are not getting off that easy.” He makes a gesture at Bucky’s neck, still blooming with blues and purples just above his shirt collar. “You don’t get marks like that from ‘good’. Come on Barnes, let me live vicariously!”

He’d bet his best quiver that the particularly dark pair of spots in the middle of the bruising would be a match for Steve’s slightly crooked lower canines.

“You wanna rethink that sentence with your wife sitting next to you?” Bucky challenges with a grin. “Gosh, Clint, I had no idea you had such passionate, secret yearnings for Steve.”

“Ours is a forbidden love,” Clint deadpans, which actually gets a cackle out of Nat as she sips her spiced cider. He gives a quick kiss to the corner of her eye. “Seriously, just pony up, dude.”

“It was…he was…” Bucky sighs, looking down at Liho in his lap. He scratched beneath her chin, watching her narrow her eyes in contentment. “He couldn’t be more perfect if I designed him myself.”

“And that’s bad?” Natasha guesses quietly.

“Yes…no! God, no,” he smiles and shakes his head. “Steve’s like me, but in reverse, in some ways. With the, uh, size, and also the…the control thing. And I can see it scares him, but he just pushes on – keeps giving, keeps trusting.”

“Well, duh.” Clint says easily, letting Lucky calm down so that he can flop onto Clint’s legs for ear-scratches.

“It’s the same thing you do,” Natasha says idly, rubbing the ecstatic pizza dog’s belly. Lucky’s tongue lolls out in a doggy smile at her and Clint fondly watches her reluctantly give a smile of her own. Bucky opens his mouth to refute this claim, but she cuts him off with “Yes, yes you do. It’s how Strike Team Delta began, _kozel_.”

“She’s right – oooh, shit that’s gotta hurt!” Clint says, wincing at Jason Brown. “No offense to my smoking hot wife or her _outrageous_ anger issues, but she was a pretty hard sell and I wasn’t in any condition to open myself up to Tasha the way that you did.”

“It’s terrifying, the way you do it,” Natasha agrees, pulling apart strings of red licorice.

“You’re telling me,” Clint mutters. “I broke him in for you. It’s like in the first ten seconds, you decide ‘I like him. I trust him.’. Ya know, I spent eight weeks wondering if you were really that dumb. I mean, I _know_ you are, now, but at the time it seemed completely insane.”

Natasha murmurs “That kind of faith is intimidating, especially if you’ve never been relied on by anyone before. He’s at least got Sam and Carter, so he isn’t totally blindsided the way we were.”

 _It’s no wonder we’re so wrapped up in each other_ , Natasha thinks fondly. At the time, none of them had anything else, no one to belong to, no one who would care if they never came home again. They’ve come so far, dragging and shoving and pushing and coaxing each other all the way.

Steve, if he was smart, would find himself just as caught up. It really spoke to how far they were now that Natasha was almost looking forward to it.

She couldn’t wait for him to meet the rest of The Family.

 

Monday December 18th, 2017

Steve was second-guessing this trip to the Met. It was admittedly one of his favorite places in the city. He used to literally spend hours wondering around the various galleries especially on dreary days after his mother passed away. But he did tend to become sort of…absorbed in his surroundings there.

By one o’clock Monday afternoon, it’s too late to change their plans despite his own misgivings. He is loitering near the entrance, scanning around a bit anxiously for a large man with dark hair when a voice behind him murmurs _“Zvat, zvezdochka.”_

Steve feels his mouth curling into a smile before he even turns around. _“Dobryy den, mishka.”_ And there he is, soft eyes just for Steve, carefully put together in a beautifully tight, long-sleeved shirt and dark jeans. Each time he sees him, he’s hit with it all over again, and blurts out _“Krasavchik!”_

_Handsome man!_

Bucky blushes and Steve arches onto his toes to cup his jaw and give him a kiss, which Bucky falls into eagerly. A passing stranger wolf-whistles at the pair of them and they break away, grinning foolishly at each other.

“Wanna go inside and look around?” Steve asks, threading their fingers together and trying not to look like it was making his heart explode. Bucky nods and lets himself be led around by the hand.

He was vaguely aware before now that Steve was an artist, caught brief glimpses of his work before over cups of tea and plates of stroganoff. But he’d never realized before now how much Steve actually knew _about_ art. He's brilliant. Really. Fucking brilliant.

Steve leads him through the exhibits, talking about everything they see, sometimes pausing to explain something in more depth. Bucky enjoys hearing Steve talk anyway – he has the perfect voice for it, deep and soothing – but hearing him talk about something he's passionate about outside of the bedroom is a whole new experience. Each new piece they see is described in a low caressing tone that gives the experience an almost sensual intimacy.

The beautiful angle of his cheekbones is flushed, and his big blue eyes are sparkling and bright. His hands, slender and so graceful, make quick sweeping gestures to illustrate his speech. Steve kept glancing up at Bucky, each time expecting to see the glaze of disinterest passing over his features, but Bucky is riveted to Steve’s every word.

 _Little idiot,_ Bucky thinks with a fond quirk of his mouth. Steve could be described in a lot of ways, but he didn’t think ‘disinteresting’ is one of them.

Steve on the other hand, pauses in the middle of the sculptures exhibit hall, and realizes that he’s been talking almost nonstop for at least the past half an hour, and probably longer. He claps a hand over his mouth in mid-sentence and Bucky makes a startled, questioning noise. “I’m so sorry, I get kind of lost in the scenery,” he says, apologetic. “I didn’t mean to spend so much time talking at you. Peggy refuses to even mention the Met’s name in front of me – she says it’s too sad, like taunting a golden retriever with a tennis ball.”

Bucky chuckles, shakes his head and gives Steve a small smile, making a ‘please continue’ gesture. Steve can feel the thumb of the flesh and blood hand tracing over the spiderweb of veins in his wrist and Steve suddenly and abruptly wishes to be somewhere less public, because the things he wants to whisper into Bucky’s skin aren’t suitable for even low-key public viewing. He takes a breath. “This is on loan from a gallery in Rome. The model was actually Napoleon Bonaparte’s younger sister, Pauline.”

He takes in the sculpture Steve gestures toward, a beautiful woman reclining on a chaise. She is naked from the waist up and looking over her shoulder. The piece is called ‘ _Venus Viatrix’ – Venus the Victorious._ Bucky cocks his head as he looks at her face and decisively says “ _Natalia_.”

One blond brow arches playfully. “Should I be worried that you’ve compared Natasha with a topless lady?

Grinning, Bucky shakes his head and points at the length of his own neck, aping the manner in which the figure is looking over her shoulder. Steve breathes an “Oh!” and turns back to look more closely at the lady on her chaise lounge.

The way she’s posed suggests languor, and her face is tranquil and pleased, even self-satisfied. Her arms are draped apart in a relaxed manner, supplying a clear view of her breasts, while some kind of sheet or blanket conceals the rest of her nudity. But despite the apparent ease of her posture, there is a tension to the way she holds her neck and shoulders.

Fear, perhaps? She feigns cool confidence with the mastery of someone skilled at deception who knows that they’re being watched. She hides her real vulnerability with the obvious vulnerability of her nakedness.

“She does-it does feel like Natasha,” Steve says, stunned. He scrambles for his bag, fumbling for the sketchbook he always has stashed on his person in public.

Bucky watches curiously over his shoulder as Steve sketches out lines, capturing the rigid line of her neck, the smug curve of her lips, the hourglass shape of her torso, and the surprisingly delicate tuck of her legs over the chaise. When the rough outline is finished, Steve has given her the basics of the Black Widow’s outfit, complete with Natasha’s face. The chaise has been replaced by a table, weapons surrounding her.

She looks relaxed and deadly, but he has captured that subtle hint of anxiety. He isn’t certain what this particular drawing will be used for yet. It would make a great piece of cover art, with some more polishing and greater details. Black Widow is undeniably a killer but she’s damaged, not heartless, and he and Sam have been struggling to show this aspect of her. His excited for this – Widow is kind of his pet project and he feels inspiration for her story from this encounter.

He comes out of the trance of feverish work to find Bucky’s arms are now around his waist, his chin resting on Steve’s shoulder to watch him while he draws.

Steve blinks. “I’m really sorry, but I was afraid I was going lose her if I waited for another time.”

Bucky studies the picture the same way he studied the statue. Steve also wants to sketch him, but he doesn’t know how to ask without sounding awkward just then. As patient as Bucky was, he doesn't think the man wants to wait around watching him work all day. Steve feels the brief kiss of metal upon his cheek, and he turns in surprise, startled that Bucky has consciously and voluntarily elected to touch him with the prosthetic.

The cool caress of steel trails from his cheek in a lazy path all the way down to his hand, tugging him gently onwards to the next exhibit. Steve is going to blame that crazy skip in his pulse on his heart condition. “ _Come on, sweetheart.”_

Yep, heart condition.

\- - -

Steve doesn’t remember that Bucky gave him the recording until he’s sitting in the bathtub, eyelids dropping down, trying not to fall asleep and mostly failing. He keeps reliving their goodbye that afternoon, Bucky’s hands on his waist and a parting kiss so sweet it makes him ache, even just to think of it now. It just seemed so horribly final.

The lingering heat had kept him warm all the way home, but he wanted to just turn around and follow him back to Brighton Beach the entire trip back to Red Hook. It’s then that Steve remembers the object Bucky slipped into his into bag as he left.

The digital recorder.

Steve climbs out of the tub and manages to brush his teeth with his eyes half-closed, the audio player clutched in one hand.

He crawls into bed, collapsing onto the pillows with an exhausted sigh, his fingers catching the play button in the dark. He’s surprised to be greeted with his own voice: “You first. I wanna watch. Please?” Dear god, he doesn’t really sound like that, does he? His eyes slip closed as the rustling of clothes being removed plays through the bedroom. “Your-your shirt. Open up your shirt.”

Steve rolls his eyes at himself. How didn’t he see it earlier? He’s been bossing Bucky around the entire time – it was just more subtle this way. “Show me the way you do it yourself. I wanna see the way you like it.”

Bucky inhales sharply, the sound a shockingly loud contrast to his own low whispers. Steve inhales along with himself at the unmistakable noise of a hand sliding over flesh. “Oh my god, you look fantastic. Don’t stop. Please, Buck.”

Steve sets his teeth at the annoying whine in his voice, but then is startled by Bucky’s moaning, in all its coarse Brooklyn tones: “This is going to be over very quickly, gorgeous. Especially if you keep talking to me like that.”

Somehow, Bucky dimmed the original audio of himself and recorded over the lines in English. Steve’s breath catches and he doesn’t even hear his next sentence. He does hear “C’mon, _mishka,_ gimme!”

His voice leads Bucky through the orgasm and its aftermath. There’s a few moments of loud fast panting before Bucky says “It’s your turn, darling. Let me see…”

“Can’t understand you.” A pause and the sound of shifting on the bed, his own voice whispering “Give me a minute, alright? After that you deserve better than a ten second show.”

The sounds of the bed moving again and then Bucky whispers, tender and intimate across the darkness: “Beautiful boy. I swear there is no star that can compete with you, _zvezdochka_. My little starlet.”

Eyes still closed, Steve blushes in the dark room, pushing his face into his pillow. There is no one to see his embarrassment but _really_!? First babydoll, and dollface, and now starlet?

Another rustle of clothes being removed.

Bucky murmurs “Oh, oh, look at you, you’re so pretty.” Steve attempts to suffocate himself beneath the blankets. He knew Buck was a talker, but he wasn’t expecting this at all. There’s a wet sound and his own voice breaks into a long moan. Bucky growls “Stunning, just gorgeous. Put your hand on your cock, baby. I wanna watch you lose your pretty head.”

He can hear his own whimpers and Bucky hums of enjoyment. More wet, sucking sounds and then himself keenly lowly. There’s a low ache of arousal in his belly, but Steve is exhausted and not very interested in doing anything about it. “God, you’re a sexy little piece.” Bucky sighs. “Are you gonna ‘ah-ah-ah’ for me when I suck you off, dragule? That’ll be as often as possible, if I get my way.”

He shudders to hear himself coming, and Bucky’s delighted noises. “Oh, sweetheart, that’s beautiful.” Steve’s labored, hitching gasps and Bucky’s own deliberately steady breathing. “Just breathe with me, baby, nice and slow with me. Just like that, dragule. I’ve gotcha, I’ve gotcha.”

Steve thinks that the recording is over when the sound cuts out and reaches to shut it off when he hears a soft noise that sounds like himself.

“Good morning, Steve.”

This was the part he really wanted to hear – Steve was worried about their communication particularly since some heavy things happened that Saturday morning. He ignores himself in favor of listening to Bucky, though he can still recall every moment of his own insecurity.

His eyes grow wider and wider with every word spoken.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t make you feel nice. Do you want me to stop?”

“My beautiful boy. You can push me off if this isn’t okay.”

“Baby, oh, babydoll. So good to me, you’re so good to me, baby.”

“Is it good?”

“Star, my little star. Wanna make you sigh some more. Think I’m goin’ crazy – I can’t get enough of you…”

“Star, can I come? Please? Please, star. Please, can I come?”

Steve is red in the face by the time he listens to himself demanding that Bucky fuck him and so he’s a bit caught off guard when Bucky whispered “Your skin is silk. Your mouth is velvet. Your eyes…fuck, oh, fuck…your eyes are-are jewels. Treasure, please my treasure, let me finish!”

“Show me you want it,” Steve pleaded.

And Bucky growled: “I want it. Want you. Your little heart-shaped ass and your big gorgeous bedroom eyes. Your angel face and that dark mind you’re so scared of. Give. It. To. Me.”

He can hear the desperate sounds of Bucky finishing, but he’s understandably a little floored. _Your skin is silk. Your mouth is velvet. Your eyes are jewels. I want it. Give. It. To. Me._

Steve fumbles for the contacts list in his phone and presses the dial button, realizing too late that his behavior is a bit clingier than he’d like.

Bucky sounds warm and sleepy and Steve already wishes he were in this bed beside him, filling up the space with his heat and his mass. “’Lo? Stevie?”

“You don’t play fair, Bucky Barnes,” Steve says softly as he soaks in the sound of his voice and breathing.

“Course I don’t,” he slurs, blurry with exhaustion. English is sliding easily from his brain to his mouth. “I’ll use every trick in the book if it gets you to keep me around. Never said I was too proud to beg, babydoll.”

Steve’s eyes squeeze shut as his heart skips its rhythm, slow and erratic, thudding heavily in his throat and temples. “I wanna keep you. I wish you were in this bed with me right now.”

“Yeah?” he husks. “Are you cold, baby?”

“Yes,” he says in a small voice. In his head, ringing: _I want it. Give. It. To. Me._ Steve believes him and it’s terrifying, it’s one of the most terrifying things he’s ever felt. Like love and trust and freedom, all of them and none of them at the same time. He tries to back away from it at the last second, to laugh it off, chuckling “Poor circulation, I guess. Who would’ve thought?”

Bucky doesn’t let him back away, doesn’t give off an inch. “Well, I can’t have that. My poor, sweet baby shivering all by himself,” he whispers. “Lay back and close your eyes, _dragule_.”

“Why?” Steve whispers back, obeying anyway.

“Just listen to my voice, babydoll,” he says, low and intimate. “Close your eyes and listen, cause I’m right here beside you.”

Steve’s eyelids relax. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says, blissful. “I’ve got this gorgeous blond in my arms, and I’m keepin’ him nice and warm.”

“Anyone I know?” Steve asks dreamily.

“Oh, yeah, you’ve seen him before. Can’t miss him,” Bucky insists with a smile in his voice. “He’s an angel – blonde, big blue eyes, looks sent straight from heaven. Any day now he’s going to show me those wings of fire, like they have in the bible.”

“He sounds lucky,” he whispers, already tingling and blotchy with the flush crawling over his face. “The way you talk about him, he’s awfully lucky.”

“Oh, no, I am,” Bucky croons. “Every time he sighs for me and calls me ‘ _mishka’_ , I’m the luckiest damn fool in New York. And I’m gonna hold my angel until the sun comes up, then I’ll kiss him until he blushes real pretty for me.”

“Bucky!” Steve scolds.

“You’re doing it right now aren’t you, _dragule_? I love that blush. Before you talked to me that first time, my favorite thing was watching Sam tease you, so you’d start turning pink like a good little altar boy every time and it made me wanna lick you all over, _zvezdochka._ ”

“My favorite thing was watching you glare daggers at all the jerks trying to grab Natasha’s ass.” Steve admits reluctantly. “Why do you call me that? Call me ‘star’?”

“Because you shine,” he says honestly, as though it’s obvious. “Every time you walk into a room, you’re the brightest thing in it.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Steve scoffs.

“Oh, I definitely am, just ask Clint and Natasha. But it’s true.” He hesitates. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, why not.”

“Why did you flinch when I touched your nipples, baby?” The question is gentle, not accusing. Bucky knows he’s approaching a sensitive topic.

Steve is eerily silent. He thought he’d done a great job of hiding his reaction, but he couldn’t help it. “They’re pretty sensitive,” he says quietly. “My, uh, my last boyfriend…was kind of rough and that can hurt.”

He waits in trepidation as Bucky is quiet for several moments before inhaling loudly. “I can tell by the way you talk about it, that isn’t the whole story,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “But I won’t ask you for more, sweetheart. Just…tell me when something hurts? When something isn’t right?”

And Steve says “I will, Buck, I promise.”

 _Though that didn’t seem to bother Brock at the time._ It wasn’t a question of saying no, because he certainly had told him to stop being so rough – Brock just hadn’t listened. So, Steve had kicked him in the balls and tossed him out into the hallway, against his very loud protests. Obviously, that was the day that they’d broken up and it wasn’t like Brock had raped him or anything, but the sensation had…left an impression, and he couldn’t help his instinctive reaction to be touched there again.

“I’d never hurt you on purpose, babydoll.” Bucky sounds pained at the very idea.

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Steve says quietly. “Buck, please don’t think that you’ve hurt me or frightened me, because nothing could be further from the truth. You’ll…you _will_ tell me if I go too far, too, right?”

Bucky whispers “The Russian word for ‘stop’ is _ostanavit_.”

Exhausted and sleepy, Bucky helps him practice until he can pronounce it perfectly, and he knows the sound as well as if it were English.

Sighing he rolls over. “ _Mishka_ , I never actually had a teddy bear as a child.”

“I’m your _mishka_ now, sweetheart.” His voice is the last thing Steve hears before he goes to sleep. “Close your eyes for me, my little star. I’m right there beside you, and no harm will ever come to you.”

Steve hums and for a moment, he feels the sensation of an arm resting at his waist.

 

Sunday, December 24th, 2017

When she is three yours old, Daisy Johnson is placed into a foster home and turned into Mary Sue Poots.

When she is six years old, the family gives her back, but she doesn’t get to give back the name. From then on, she prefers to be called 'Skye' instead, because no one told her she already had a name.

She is eleven when one of the boys in her foster home teaches her how to steal.

At thirteen, she learns how to pick locks.

She is fourteen the first time she hacks another computer’s system. It is then that she realizes that her parents are still alive. Her father’s prison sentence is nearly over and they would like to have her back.

She is fifteen and has been with her biological parents for three weeks when her mother hits her for the first time. Her father tries to stop it, continues trying to stop it. Her father isn’t quite the monster he was made out to be from the very beginning, but Daisy slowly comes to understand that Calvin is a weak man and Jiaying is manipulative and cruel.

She’d spent her entire childhood believing that if only she found her ‘real’ family, her life would be better, but in some ways, Jiaying and Calvin are much, much worse. Jiaying makes her feel small and worthless in a way that no foster family has ever managed before – after all, how could her own mother, the woman who actually gave _birth_ to her, treat her this way unless Daisy really is that awful? And Calvin, despite clearly being upset about the way his wife treats Daisy, doesn’t do anything about it to make it stop on a permanent basis and he has his own moments of uncontrollable anger, though thankfully never toward her.

Daisy runs away when she is sixteen.

She is found by a man named Phillip J Coulson, who lies about her age on her official documents to get her registered with him for the training program in SHIELD. At the time, Daisy thought he wanted her for her hacking skills, which though indeed very promising, are only about third on his list of reasons.

Coulson knew that without a place to call home, she’d go right back to her idiot boyfriend Miles, who is just using her, or end up getting caught and thrown back into her mother’s claws again.

In any way that matters, Coulson and May are her real parents. She was mistrustful of them in the beginning, especially of May. Agent Melinda May shared all the of the admirable and frightening qualities of her mother – a beautiful, delicate looking Chinese woman with a sharp mind who was emotionally remote and physically much more powerful than she looks, and with an intimidating demeanor and practical outlook. It took them awhile to get to there, but she knows that they are her parents, and her home, where she belongs.

She had been with them for a year, training for field work when Coulson gave her a very special assignment: a conflict of interest interview with Strike Team Delta. These were routine checks when two agents on a given team became romantically involved – Director Fury was generally okay with agents doing this, as long as they didn’t try to hide it and submitted themselves to an assessment by another agent, who would operate as an uninterested third party. Because Daisy is seventeen and insecure and made cynical by her life experience, she wonders if Coulson and May are sending her off because they’ve already grown tired of her.

She realized shortly after arriving at the Delta’s current station in Mumbai that Coulson never told her _which_ of the agents on the team have the conflict of interest. It takes her six hours to figure out that this is exactly what he intended – Barnes, Barton, and Romanov are all over each other, constantly in each other’s space, both physically and emotionally. Coulson has given her a test of her observational skills, to see if she can figure out which of them are now in a romantic relationship without resorting to invasive tactics.

On day two, she wondered if they weren’t a triangle of romantic conflict. Both men seemed to touch Natasha without a thought and the sex jokes thrown at each other were endless. Natasha, too, was fearless about initiating close physical contact, playing with one’s hair and using the other as a piece of furniture, bodily pushing them away when she got annoyed or when either of them get too much in the way.

On day three, Daisy got sick and all three of them sat up with her, pulling her hair aside and rubbing her back as she vomited what felt like everything she’d eaten since she was five. She has hazy memories of Natasha peeling her clothes off and dabbing her feverish skin with a cool cloth, then redressing her in clean pajamas. Then Bucky lifted her off the bed and rocked her like a child while Clint swiftly stripped off the soiled sheets and remade the bed with clean ones.

On day five, she woke up to Clint and Natasha snuggled into a chair beside her bed, Clint snoring and Natasha drooling all over his shoulder. Bucky snorted at them as he walked into the room, catching her eye as he checked on her. “Feeling better?” he whispered, gently coaxing her weak limbs into standing. “Let’s leave the lovebirds here to rest. Do you feel hungry?”

Hoarsely, Daisy said “I feel like death.”

She was too shaky to make it more than a few steps, but he lifted her again and took her into the kitchen, letting her rest sitting against the cabinets on top of the counters. “Aw, you’re gonna be alright, _shchenok_.”

“Wahsat mean?” she slurred. Her hands are too shaky to hold a bowl or spoon, so Bucky holds the cup of broth steady to her mouth.

“Easy, go slow,” he warned. “And it means puppy or pup.”

She swallows her tiny sip, grimacing at the uncomfortable clench of her muscles. She doesn’t feel nauseous anymore, but the sudden nourishment makes her stomach ache. “Why?”

“Because Natasha calls May and Coulson ‘ _lisitsa i sobaka’_ , which roughly translates to ‘the fox and the hound’. You’re his youngest kid, so you’re the pup.”

She eyed him uncertainly. “You know they’re not my actual parents, right? I mean my parents are a doting white guy and a scary Chinese lady, but…”

“Tch,” Bucky scoffed. “You’re all the kids of _lisitsa_ _i_ _sobaka_ over there on the bus _._ You don’t think they picked you at random, do you?”

“They didn’t pick me,” she mumbled. “They more sort of…found me, and I just never left.”

He snorted again. “D’you really think you would’ve been on Coulson’s bus for longer than an hour if they didn’t want you there? Trust me, you’re one’a his, and that makes you a pup.”

“Well, what about Natasha?” she said, a bit aggressively. “Ward told me she was trained by May, but they threw her out and sent her to you.”

Quietly, Bucky said “Then Agent Ward hasn’t quite told you the whole truth, because May was extremely worried about her placement, and that was actually why she was transferred to us. Natasha is…not very fond of men, and May decided that it was best if she were placed in a smaller team.”

Daisy’s brows pinched together. “I don’t understand. But…you’re a man. You and Clint…you’re _both_ men.”

“Oh, but I’m really not,” Bucky said with a careless smile. “I’m the mama bear, so I don’t have a gender, ya know. At least not where all of you are concerned. Clint is…well, not harmless, but you might have noticed he’s pretty chill about everything. And you could say we both have a way with people who…haven’t been handled very gently.”

“Is that why-” Daisy stopped herself before she finished the sentence with ‘ _you’re all so nice to me_?’ and settled on: “-why they ended up together?”

“I suppose you could say that, yes.”

Daisy grins to herself at the memory while sitting in the driver’s seat of the SUV, listening to Coulson, Simmons, and Hunter belt out Christmas carols along with the radio and occasionally joining in. Beside her in the front seat, May sips her black coffee and visibly struggles not to roll her eyes at them. Mack, through some strange and wonderful skill, is somehow asleep way in the back beside Bobbi and Fitz.

“Are we there yet?” Fitz complains. “How much longer will I have to endure Hunter’s tone-deafness?”

Above Hunter’s loud ‘Oi!’: “Oh, we’re nearly there,” Bobbi says brightly. “Yeah, Clint and I stopped at that cafe right there after one of Bucky’s appointments.”

“It’s so exciting!” Simmons exclaims, breaking off in the middle of Blue Christmas. “Oh, it’s been months, and Clint just sent another letter – he says Bucky looks so much better now.” 

Daisy grins again, wide and shark-like and it makes May look over at her sharply. “What is that face, Daisy Johnson? What do you know?”

She turns the radio down. “That letter was dated for October – you know Clint isn’t very good at remembering to mail them after he writes them out.”

“Oh, for god’s sake, Daisy, quit torturing them!” Bobbi laughs. “Or I’ll do it myself!”

“No, no!” Daisy protests. “She told me first, I want to tell it!”

“Tell _what_?!” Fitz demands. The shout causes Mack to jerk up with a snort, startled to be awoken so rudely.

“We’re going to meet someone new,” she says with a wide smile they can all see through the overhead mirror. “Natasha told me that Uncle Buck found a boyfriend.”

The car explodes with sound and May mock-glowers over at her and says in an accusing tone “You did that on purpose.”

Daisy smirks “Did what, Mama May?”

May mock-glowers harder and Hunter cackles. “You’re the only one who can do that and live.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

"Guys," Coulson says abruptly "We're here!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 9/3/2018
> 
> Dumpster fire extraordinaire.


	6. and love still breed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anybody have a better story summary than I do? Cause I should probably fix that at some point. Also: sorry, but not really.

Sunday, December 24th, 2017

Peggy comes up behind him as Steve stands at the mirror, fiddling with his tie, and gently adjusts the knot for him. Quietly, she says “This is kind of a big step.”

She is not making an accusation, but he feels it just the same. “I know,” he says, equally solemn. “I know this is going too fast, but everything just…he feels right, Peg. I think it’s the right one this time.”

“There’s no such thing as too fast or too slow for real love,” she says, sitting on the edge of his bed and delicately applying her signature shade of red lipstick. “And I’ve never seen you look this way, so I _do_ think it is real.”

Steve is silent as he combs back his hair, knowing by her demeanor that Peggy has more to say. It’s easier to wait her out than try to wheedle it out of her. He’s also pretty certain that he knows something about what she plans to say.

“You need to tell James the truth, Steve.”

The slender, delicate fingers tightened into a fist as they hover over the row of bottles waiting on the dresser. In a voice so low as to be nearly inaudible, Steve admits “I don’t know how, Pegs. This…I think it might be too late for me to say something and keep his trust.”

Alarmed now, Peggy asks “You haven’t…? Oh, Steve you didn’t actually sleep with him, did you?”

“I…not, um, not exactly?”

“Not _exactly_?!” she demands, appalled. “You know the rule – if both of you had an orgasm that’s a yes, Steve!”

He swallows. “Yes, I did. We did. I think this may be one of the best things to have ever happened to me, Pegs, and I’ve already fucked it up before it began.” He sits beside her, resting his head on her shoulder. “I know that I need to tell him, and I know that this looks really, really bad – but I don’t know how to make it right. I never expected it to go this far, honestly.”

Peggy pulls off her velvet gloves to rub at her temples as though to ward off a migraine. “Please tell him before the two of you end up in front of an altar somewhere, at least promise me that. Or so help me, Steve Rogers, I will pull out an ‘I object’ on you.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Steve stands in front of the dresser once more, hands hovering above the bottles again. “Hm.”

Impatient, Peggy says “For heaven’s sake, Steve, _not_ the Versace – the Dior, unless you want him to hunt you down and maul you inside a back closet somewhere.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed to it,” Steve mutters, smiling a little at Peggy’s annoyed huff from across the room. He picks up the Dior. “Better not, though.”

“Is he as hopeless with his wardrobe as you are?”

“I think Natasha has picked out most of the outfits I’ve seen him in outside the restaurant,” Steve hums. “Otherwise he always dressed in service-staff black.”

“Oh, dear god help me, there’s two of them now,” Peggy sighs in exasperation.

“Yes,” Steve agrees with mock sympathy “But at least now you’ll have Natasha helping you.”

“God help us both, then.”

\- - -

If Margaret Carter did not know Steve was in love before, she certainly does when they walk through the front door. At the sight of Bucky in his striped dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves, Steve lights up like a living candle, eyes aglow. “Oh, _mishka_ , look at you!”

“ _Ty son, angel moy.”_ Bucky breaths, greeting him with the kiss which Steve has already made clear is absolutely required. _You’re a dream, my angel._ Steve is breathless, eyes sparkling by the fairy-lights strung up around the restaurant, cheeks flushed with color. Bucky touches the sharp edge of a cheekbone gently, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. _“Ah, there’s that blush I love so much.”_

While not capable of translating it exactly, Steve clearly understands what Bucky is talking about, because the rosy color grows deeper, to his delight. “None of that,” Natasha scolds, to Peggy’s great amusement. “James, I know what that look is. You behave yourself. No sneaking off anywhere.” 

“ _Da, mama,”_ Bucky says, sounding not the least bit contrite and grinning like the devil himself.

“James, I _will_ get the spray bottle and hose you down like Lucky,” Utterly exasperated with him after waking up at seven am to begin cooking this dinner, admittedly with some of his help, Natasha sighs “We’re lucky you figured out you’re gay so early, otherwise with a smile like that, you’d have knocked up all the girls in Brooklyn and half of Queens to boot.”

Bucky shudders eloquently at the very idea, making everyone else laugh.

Natasha leads them to the back kitchen, where a tea service is set up at the small staff table. “Sit down make and yourselves comfortable. You’re a bit early and we usually skip lunch today. I thought you were bringing Sam?”

Peggy watches with something between fascination and worry as Bucky leans over in his chair to nuzzle Steve’s neck, gently scratching him with stubble as an intimate greeting. Steve is far from offended at this treatment, shuddering and sighing as he murmurs a softer, personal hello.

“Oh, he snuck off to Harlem with Riley to see his mother,” Peggy replies pleasantly, then narrows her eyes at the men across from her. “Steven Rogers, your mother raised you to be a better guest than that. Keep your hands above the damn table.”

Red-faced as Natasha laughs at him, Steve says “On the 26th, they’ll fly out to Missouri to spend New Year’s with Riley’s brother and sister. Are you guys really closed from now till the 2nd?”

“We really are. It’s mostly for the staff, to be honest – I feel bad keeping them here during the holidays, especially when we’re not that busy the week between Christmas and New Year’s.” Natasha comes to the table with the tea kettle and several tins, using a book of matching to a light candle inside the pot warmer sitting at the back. “Peggy, you’re the guest _not_ helping James commit a health code violation in my kitchen, so please pick out whatever you like. James, I think the _cozonac_ is ready.”

“ _Shit_ ,” Bucky bolts up from the chair to the massive industrial ovens.

“Did you make extra like I asked you to?” she demands.

 _“Da, Natalia,”_ he responds, rolling his eyes at her.

“What’s that?” Steve asks, happy to change the subject.

“ _Cozonac_? It’s a sweet bread, similar to French brioche, but it’s from Romania,” Natasha explains. “James’ grandmother taught him the recipe.”

Fragrant steam wafts from the ovens as Bucky a dozen loaves from the racks. “ _Taught_ _me_ ,” Bucky scoffs. “ _She made me bake it for her until I didn’t have to use measuring cups anymore_.”

Natasha repeats it for him, and Peggy and Steve both laugh. “She sounds like my aunt Maggie – I was named after her, you know,” she says with a conspiratorial smile. “She was a very particular woman and her daughter was a nightmare, but god could she make pot roast. Made sure I got the recipe before she died.”

“You have to make that for them,” Steve pleads. “I love you, and I’d still kill you for that pot roast. It’s better than my mom’s, may she forgive me.”

“It’s nice to know you cherish our friendship, Steve,” Peggy says dryly. Confused, she adds “Don’t you have another roommate?”

“That would be Clint, my husband,” Natasha says brightly, bringing the tea tray back loaded with treats. They did this every Christmas, but it was nice to have guests this time. She was also reasonably certain that Steve and Peggy were unlikely to get drunk on Jaeger, convince Clint to do karaoke, and throw up in her bathtub, the way Tony had two years ago. “ _Stepushka_ , do you want some kissel and syrniki? Clint says he’d kill _me_ for it.”

“Some _what_?”

“ _He can’t have that_!” Bucky says sharply as he pours the first round of tea, starting with Peggy. “ _I’m not having any either_.”

“Why can’t he have that?” Natasha asks in confusion. “Wait, why? You love kissel.”

Steve peers at the plate, eyes widening at the bright red hue of the sauce. “Oh, Bucky, you remembered. It’s made with strawberries, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes. I like blackcurrant best, but they don’t really have that in America. James, why aren’t you having any? It’s your favorite!”

“I’m allergic to strawberries,” Steve says with an apologetic smile. To Bucky, he says “That doesn’t mean you can’t have any! You just have to remember to brush your teeth well after you’ve eaten it!”

Natasha translates “I’m not going to spend the whole night worrying if one kiss could kill you.”

“Sap,” Steve accuses, but he’s smiling. “Buck, that smells amazing.”

 _“Konechno. Eto sdelano s shokoladom,”_ he says, grinning back.

Both hosts are surprised when Peggy, idly stirring into milk into her tea, responds “He says ‘of course it does, it’s made with chocolate’.” She glances up at the surprised silence greeting her. “What? I do know some Russian – I thought Steve would have told you already. As I’m sure you know, it’s a valuable skill for a SHIELD agent.” Her lips quirk up. “And anyway, I’d recognize the word for chocolate in any language.”

There’s a ruckus coming from the front of the restaurant, the bell above the door chiming as it opens. Natasha frowns and calls “If you’re not Clint, we’re closed!”

A husky female voice responds “Aw, Auntie Nat, that’s pretty cold.”

Like a winter’s sun bursting though clouds, Bucky suddenly grins, straightens, and turns to the doorway. Half-giggling and half-singing: “Daisy, Daisy, give me your-!”

Laughing loudly, Natasha joins with her surprisingly deep, melodic voice “-answer do, I’m half-crazy-!”

Farther in the restaurant, a whole crowd of voices sing “-all for the love of you!”

Clint pops his head in, a large shit-eating grin on his face. “Hey, I found a buncha nutcases out on the sidewalk!”

A tiny woman bundled up in a coat and beanie comes flying into the kitchen, launching herself into Bucky’s arms with an excited scream of “UNCLE BUCK!!”

“Daisy-Bell!” Bucky whirls her around, laughing in disbelief and pleased surprise as he hugs her tight. “Jesus Christ, child! I thought I’d have to lose my other arm before I got to see my Daisy-Bell again! Clint said you were all in Tahiti until sometime in March!”

Steve realizes he’s crying a bit, kissing the young woman’s whole face before setting her back down. She – Daisy – is openly tearing up, too, rubbing at her eyes with her small fists. “I’ve missed you so much. I didn’t want to go without at least spending Christmas with you. Wow – Mama Bear, you look amazing!”

Everybody seems to talk at once:

“Handsome as the devil himself,” agrees a tall blond woman from the doorway.

“But only half as clever,” the scruffy Englishman beside her adds with a smirk. “Natasha, my extremely poisonous blossom, please tell me you have borscht. I don’t even eat beets and I’ve been having sick fantasties about your borscht for the past eighty miles.”

“Your entire brain is a sick fantasy.” He kisses her on the cheek and Natasha swats at him, appalled. “Of course I have borscht, you heathen. What do you take me for? You’ve had Christmas at my table twice in the past six years, you know how these things work. James makes _cozonac_ for tea, I serve borscht for the first course, and Clint makes _kolach_ for dessert.”

“So this is why you wanted two dozen goddamn loaves!” Bucky realizes.

“Well, I thought that way they’d at least last us twenty minutes.”

Another woman, this one slender and pale and with an English accent, eagerly says “You’d be so proud, Natasha. Bobbi helped Fitz make pryaniki. They’re nearly as good as yours.”

“Not quite as good,” says the quiet Scotsman, still looking pleased at the compliment from the lady on his arm.

Nearer to the door, a massive black man says to Clint “Either feed me or bring that cherry brandy thing Barnes makes before I fall asleep under one of your tables.”

“Cherry brandy? Oh, the vișinată! Shit, yeah, that’s the bomb dot com. He has to hide it in the closet so the staff don’t pick out the cherries and eat ‘em.”

“You are all being very rude.” The sentence is uttered calmly, in a normal tone. But it’s firm, authoritative, unyielding. Steve finds his eyes drawn immediately to the speaker – a small, stately Asian woman in a leather jacket.

Standing at her side is a plain looking white man who holds his prosthetic right arm close to him. His voice and expression are mild, but also carry the weight of authority and command. “We have guests with us, and not one of you has bothered to acknowledge them.”

The cool kiss of metal touches Steve’s hand and he responds automatically, flexing his fingers to capture Bucky’s hand in his. Bucky’s voice is warm “Everyone, this is Steve Rogers and Agent Margaret Carter. Peggy, Steve, this is Mama May and Papa Coulson – Agents Melinda May and Philip Coulson – and these are their horrible children slash horrible subordinates. Agent Daisy Johnson,” the cheerful young woman who’d greeted Bucky “Agent Jemma Simmons,” the slender Englishwoman “Agent Leopold Fitz,” the slim Scotsman next to her “Agent Alfonso MacKenzie,” the large man with the stately voice “Agent Lance Hunter,” the smart-mouthed Englishman “and Agent Barbara Morse.”

“Please just call me Bobbi,” the blonde woman says cheerfully. “If you’d like to keep all your body parts.”

At Steve’s stunned expression, Bucky gently touches his cheek. “Steve, is something wrong?”

“F-fine, everything’s fine,” he says, blinking. “I’ve just never heard you sound that coherent in English. You’re half-asleep every time I can actually understand you.”

Natasha grins to herself, happy that her secret plan worked so well.

“Oh, it’s all right,” Bobbi says slyly. “He isn’t really coherent in any language.”

Bucky glares. “See if you get any of the vișinată, _vedma_.” Bobbi blows him a kiss and flips him the bird, making Hunter cackle. Looking pained, he tells Steve and Peggy. “Bobbi was my year-one supervisor, which kind of makes me wonder why I stayed in SHIELD for so long in the first place. Hunter is the ex-husband.”

“You have an ex-husband?” Peggy asks, looking a little too interested.

“No, Bobbi’s ex-husband,” Bucky explains, then grins at Steve. “I’ve never been married, baby, I promise.”

“Nope,” Mack says, chomping happily on a tray of meatballs in a paprika and tomato sauce, a glass of the cherry brandy in one hand. “You and Natasha spent half of your recon missions pretending to be married.”

Hunter adds “Nope, we’re married again.”

Natasha rolls her eyes, muttering to May “I don’t know how you put up with these clowns. I only have two and I spend most of my time wanting to kill them.”

“Ah, it’s okay, she likes a challenge,” Daisy laughs. “That’s why she and Coulson are so close!”

And May grunts “You’re all grounded.”

\- - -

The dinner is loud and kind of messy. As noisy as Bucky, Clint, and Natasha could be, there always seemed to be a weirdly focused center to it. Even factoring in their level of constant bickering, the three of them nearly behaved as one person. Coulson’s team on the other hand, was an ebbing ocean of constant chaos. People talk over each other, gesture, pass around food, and organize gifts.

Steve is overwhelmed, but even so, it’s good. He does feel better that Peggy is by his side – she’s much better at this whole social group interaction than he is. As awkward as it is having to explain the ‘ex-girlfriend best friend’ relationship, he’s a bit more comfortable with her there.

At one point, somewhere through an extremely competitive game of Battleship Peggy was somehow dragged into and the mentioned borscht with lamb was served, Daisy comes over and plops herself on Bucky’s lap on their quieter side of the room. “Sorry, but I’m his favorite,” she tells Steve, not sounding that contrite. She leans her head against Bucky’s shoulder, dwarfed by size until she really does look little a little girl on her uncle’s knee. Her voice is softer, but Steve can still hear her say “I’ve been worried about you like crazy, you know. You weren’t doing so great the last time I visited.”

“Aw, pup,” he sighs, kissing her temple. “You just lost Trip, you didn’t need to spend time worrying over me. I got Clint and Natasha to take care of me.”

“That’s not all you got.” Daisy looks right at Steve and says: “A big-ass bird told me ever since he met you, Uncle Buck looks like heaven came to earth.”

“Ah, I don’t know about _that_ ,” Steve says sheepishly, but a smile lingers on his lips. “He’s been pretty good to me, though.” Flushed and mouth forming a larger smile against his will as he stares at his clasped hands. “ _Mishka_ ’s been great, actually.”

“ _Mishka_?” Daisy looks thrilled. Steve is slightly worried he’s done something he oughtn’t, even though Bucky looks only fond. “Oh my god, you actually call him _mishka_! Thank god! Most people think I’m lying when I say he only looks like a serial killer. I was hoping you weren’t another weird twink trying to make him into your leather daddy or biker sadist.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Daisy!” Bucky yelps.

“Well, I have to check!”

Steve begins laughing, and once he starts, it’s hard to stop. So he’s laughing until tears roll down his face, and he’s gasping for air. Bucky straightens. “Babydoll, do you need your inhaler?”

He shakes his head, wiping his face. “Sorry, sorry,” he wheezes out.

Daisy chuckles. “Was it ‘leather daddy’ or ‘weird twink’ that got you?”

“Sadist,” Steve gasps, sipping his water. “Sorry if this ruins your street cred or something, but I really can’t picture you as a sadist, _mishka_.”

“Oh, he has no street cred,” Bobbi says calmly. “We call him Mama Bear.”

“He’s an _enormous_ marshmallow,” Simmons laughs.

May and Peggy both hide their smiles behind their drinks while Coulson chuckles. “He let a group of children ride him like a pony in Yemen.”

“He cries during dog movies,” Mack agrees.

“So does Clint,” Natasha points out, eyeing the field of play with all the focus of a vicious competitor.

“It was _Hachiko_!” Clint protests. “If you don’t cry during _Hachiko_ , you’re a miserable human being with a black hole for a heart.”

Daisy flashes him a smile. “See, Steve! Don’t worry – anyone who really knows him doesn’t find that too surprising.”

“On that note,” Bucky says dryly, nudging her. “Steve is actually my new favorite – mind switching places there, pup?”

Steve looks around, realizing that there are no other seats for her unless they swap places on Bucky’s lap. Daisy seems unfazed, popping back to her feet with a cheerful bounce. ‘Cheerful’ appears to be Daisy’s general default disposition actually. He gets up, letting her take his chair. Bucky smiles and crooks his finger at Steve “Come here, _zvezdochka_.”

“Oh, what big teeth you have,” Steve teases, edging near him a little nervously.

For some reason this makes Clint, sitting closest to them, snort loudly.

Bucky grins at him lazily, showing rows of white teeth, the desire of a predator and the tender eyes of a lover. Beckons to him, hand outstretched. “Come on, baby,” he croons. “Lemme keep you warm.”

Steve shivers a bit, remembering their sleepy conversation Monday night. He sidles a little closer, and closer still, thinking of the heat of Buck’s body. Craving a bit of that warmth. He ends up shrieking loudly when, quick as a cobra strike, Bucky’s hand darts out, snagging him around the waist and pulling him in. The rest of the room claps and laughs and then goes back to their activities. Bucky grins against Steve’s neck, gently squeezing him with the arm that captured him. “Look at this,” Bucky breaths into Steve’s ear. “I’ve caught an angel.”

He shudders at the change in temperature, at the swath of heat that envelopes him, delicious and welcome. “You scared me,” Steve breathes. “God, you’re so warm. Don’t let go.”

“Had no intention of it,” Bucky says easily. “Stevie, your hands are _freezing_. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Poor circulation,” he reminds, yelping a little when Bucky sits back in the chair. He moans blissfully as Bucky covers Steve’s hands with his own. “I don’t notice, Buck, they’re always cold.”

He burrows greedily for more body heat, which Bucky is happy to encourage, stroking at his icy cheeks and resting Steve’s frozen fingers on his chest. His heart is fast and steady and Steve goes boneless with delight, cheek resting on his shoulder. Bucky wraps both arms tight around him, determined to provide as much heat as humanly possible.

“You’re both adorable,” Daisy says with a grin, chewing happily on pieces of Natasha’s homemade rye used to mop up the lake of borscht and sour cream in the bottom of her bowl.

Steve smiles back, feeling content and a little sleepy now that he rests with Bucky in the chair. “Did he tell you what our first date was like?”

 _Oh shit_ , he thinks, as nearly everyone in the room zeros in on them after that statement. Daisy in particular is eyeing him the same way Hunter eyed the lamb Natasha was serving earlier. “Oh, this I’ve gotta hear,” she says eagerly, “Tell me _everything_.”

Bucky gives a self-deprecating sigh and says “I was extremely charming. Clint had to be there to translate and I said ‘fuck’ in the first five minutes.”

When the laughter dies down, Steve says “Oh, no, I wasn’t talking about that one, but thank you for incriminating yourself beforehand.” Steve smirks, eyes glinting with mischief. _The little devil inside my angel._ “Our _real_ first date – the one where you rescued a kitten and stopped three colossal dickbags from breaking my nose…again. You gave me stitches and you were so shy and cute I embarrassed myself by calling you adorable, and then you kissed me.”

There’s a loud “aw” from the peanut gallery, Clint among them because he is also a huge sap. But Steve frowns “You kissed me, and I kind of freaked out.”

“He was under the impression Natalia and I were together,” Bucky explains, chuckling at the memory.

“Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Russian and you were always bickering with each other like an old married couple! So, we kissed then I did some bad flirting and caught a fever so high I spent the night taking over your bed.”

Now Bucky frowns heavily. “We did kiss and you were feverish, but I don’t remember bad flirting.”

“Really? Because I implied you were trying to get me on a date when you fixed me dinner and then you spent the rest of the night refusing to look at me.”

“Oh.” Stunned, Bucky meets his gaze, eyes flicking down to Steve’s mouth. “No, that’s not the way I remember it at all. I remember getting pissed off at myself because I had this coy little minx licking his lips and batting his eyelashes at me, and I couldn’t even say hello properly.”

“I did not!” Steve protests. “I’m not _coy_ and don’t _bat my eyelashes_!”

“Yes, you absolutely are. This looks delicious, thank you,” Peggy says, accepting a glass of vișinată from a tray Clint is passing around, gazing with interest at the sour cherries floating inside the liquor. “When you really like someone, you get flushed and your eyelids drop. The phrase ‘bedroom eyes’ was used to describe people like you, Steve. Luckily, you never know when you’re doing it, so it’s charming rather than a creepy ploy.”

“Oh, we know,” Clint says, through a mouthful of cherries. “But Steve, my man, I thought you knew you were doing it. You really gotta be careful with a weapon that lethal, you know. Ya make Buck look like the wolf from those old cartoons every time you do it – I’m serious. He gets fuckin’ heart eyes jumping out of his skull and his tongue hangs outta his mouth.”

“I do not, you big liar!” Bucky is blushing nearly as hard as Steve is.

Natasha smirks. “We’re lucky Steve is both very kind and very oblivious, because he’d have you panting after him every moment of the day otherwise.”

The entire room crows with laughter.

“I hate all of you,” Bucky says, glaring. “Give me a glass of that, you ungrateful shitheads.”

Steve eyes the glass Clint passes him, but declines to have one of his own. “Can’t. Alcohol doesn’t mix with what I take.”

“For the most part, it doesn’t mix with mine either,” Bucky says honestly. “Which is why I’m only have one.”

“I’ll take his portion,” Peggy says slyly. “This is delightful, James. _Vișinată_ , right? What is it, exactly?”

“Well, the base is actually a homemade plum brandy that I double-distilled,” he admits. “Then you layer sour cherries and sugar in a jar and fill it with the brandy, put it in a dark room, and leave it there for like…three months. Later, I’ll use the leftover cherries in a chocolate cake for Clint’s birthday.”

A bit concerned, Clint says “I don’t doubt that you can hold your own, Peg, because no agent gets in without holding their liquor, but I promise you this will get you drunk a lot faster than you think it will.”

Cackling, Daisy whispers “Last time, Fitz took his clothes off and tried to jump into the snow!”

Bucky smirks, and says “Yeah, and you fell asleep in the coat closet and it took us until the next afternoon to find you.”

“Uncle Buck, you’re so mean.”

“I thought I was a marshmallow?” he says with a smirk. He feels Steve hiding his face against his shoulder as he smiles.

“You’re a shithead, Uncle Buck.”

“Aw, I love you too, princess.”

\- - -

Tuesday, December 26th, 2017

It went so well, and Steve was happy with the visit. As nervous as he’d been about the party, Coulson’s team made him feel welcome.

It went so well, and of course that’s why things have to go so, so wrong.

It’s the day after Christmas. The restaurant is still closed and he’s helping Natasha with breakfast. “Shit, Clint forgot to buy the eggs and the orange juice,” Natasha sighs. “Steve, can you please run to the bodega across the street for me? I need him fixing that stair right now, and if I distract him it’ll never get done.”

“I’ll come with,” Simmons says brightly. “You’re out of coffee, Natasha, and we should help pay for some of these things.”

The two of them have their coats on and they’re crossing the mostly quiet streets, snow falling lightly to the pavement. A blue and white van passes them by and Steve gives a quiet sigh of despair as the back of his neck prickles.

“Jemma,” he says softly. “I’m sorry, but I need you to stay calm for me, please.”

She has eyes the color of honey, and they fix on him somberly. His voice, she thinks at that moment, reminds her exactly of Coulson – his certainty, his quiet authority. He looks old suddenly, although she knows he’s probably not much older than she is. In the dim sunlight of the overcast sky, Steve Rogers looks like an old man in a young man’s body. But Jemma Simmons is used to operating on the edge of terror and emergencies.

Her voice comes out soft, but steady and sure. “Why is that, Steve?”

Steve breathes in, breathes out. His nerves shriek loudly at him, well-honed danger signals vibrating on full blast, all demanding he _DO SOMETHING_. He doesn't even have his gun. A gun. Not _his_ gun, a gun. Of course he doesn't have one - he didn't want to do this anymore. Doesn't. Doesn't want to do this anymore. This was all supposed to be over now, but here they are. And now he doesn't have anything to fight with, and he doesn't want Simmons to get hurt.

The van has stopped beside them.

“Because now we're going to be taken, and that’s probably my fault.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 9/3/2018
> 
> All trash. All the time.


	7. had joys no date nor age no need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed that very little detail comes from Steve's POV in this story and that's been mostly intentional. Also, I've probably exaggerated the details of his heart condition, but we're never given many specifics about his condition beyond his asthma and previous illnesses. I feel this goes without saying but I'm not in fact, a doctor.

Steve’s whole posture has changed, Simmons observes. Tension runs through him like someone poised to charge forward. Nevertheless, he says “Don’t fight, Jemma.”

“Well, that’s easily done,” she replies, somewhere between rueful and sarcastic. “I don’t have any weapons and I’m assuming that you don’t either.”

“No,” he says grimly, no trace of humor anywhere in his expression.

Jemma stares at the curved arch of his brows, his set jaw, the deep, somber blue of his eyes. At his body language, his shoulders dropped and feet planted slightly ahead of her, one arm held as if to shield her from the coming experience. She’d wondered how Steve’s manner was so familiar to her, but it isn’t Coulson he reminds her of now. Each of these she takes in. “It was you,” she breathes, awed and horrified. “It was you the whole time. You saved us…”

“I’m sorry,” Steve repeats tensely, refusing to acknowledge her statement.

Four men come out of the van, four more from nearby alleyways. There is nowhere for them to escape, no possible way Steve and Jemma, without weapons or backup, could hope to fight them off.

Steve raises his hands in the air, and calmly stares back at the head of the team – a tall, white-haired man who is looking at him with something like satisfaction. “I can’t tell you how hard it was to put this thing together,” Pierce says conversationally, without even bothering to address Jemma. “I have to give you credit, Steven, you are exceptionally careful at covering your tracks, even for an agent.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re not careful?” Pierce asks, his mask of affability slipping slightly, mouth crimped with disapproval at Steve’s flat correction.

“I’m not an agent,” he clarifies tartly, staring down the two large men on either side of him. They aren’t showing their weapons, but Steve doesn’t have any doubts that they have them. _Need to get a hold of a pistol. Hell, a knife will work in a pinch._ He isn’t strong, but throwing knives aren’t heavy and his aim is excellent. One of the men grabs Simmons tightly by the arm, causing a brief wince to flash over her face before she controls the expression. Steve snaps “Be careful with her!”

“Oh, don’t worry, pipsqueak,” The man grabbing her leers. “I’ll be real gentle.”

He feels a brief, inexplicable pride for the defiant way Jemma, normally so gentle and sweet, glares coldly at him. “I can’t say that I’ll be amiable either way.”

“Do _anything_ to her, and I will _make you_ shoot me,” Steve snarls. “And we both know that you need to keep me alive. Her safety is the only reason I’m willing to come quietly, Alexander.” Steve smiles grimly. “Oh, yes, I know who you are. I’ve know your name for much longer than you’ve known mine.”

Pierce now appraises him with even more interest. “For someone so clever, it was awfully stupid of you, getting so close to the Winter Soldier. Now I’ll have my Asset back, and I get you in the bargain.” To his men, he says “Throw away their phones. We don’t want the Soldier catching up until we’re ready for him.”

Jemma looks at Steve in horror. “You led him to Bucky?!”

“Oh, no Miss Simmons.” Pierce’s smirk was a terrible thing to witness. “The very opposite, as a matter of fact. His close proximity to the Soldier is actually what led me straight to Mr. Rogers. After all these years spent trying to hide you from us, and now Fury’s thrown away your whole life on one broken man. You see, we’re not so different, he and I.”

“You’d like to tell yourself that, wouldn’t you?” Steve seethes. “I almost want to agree – if I had the excuse of obeying orders, I couldn’t claim to have engineered this disaster myself.”

\- - -

“Peggy, what’s up? I thought you were at the office today,” Clint says, breaths heaving as he tries to yank the untacked carpet up from the lower stairs.

“Is Steven with you right now?” she asks tightly.

“Ah, yeah, he’s just helping Nat make breakfast. Do you need to talk to him?” Clint doesn’t bother asking why she’s called him instead of Steve – personally, he loses the damn phone all the time. Bucky and Nat rarely bother calling him if they know the other is with him for that very reason. “Hey, Steve! Steve! Pegs need to talk to ya for a quick minute!”

“He and Simmons went to the bodega,” she grumps. “Because _you_ forget the eggs and orange juice and we’re all out of coffee. Thought they’d be back by now…”

“Oh, he just-”

“No, he is not,” Peggy says sharply. “I need you to get Coulson and May – tell them we have an Emergency Code Foxtrot.”

“W-wait, what? Why do we need to get Fury on the phone?!” Natasha jerks her head up to look at him as Clint’s tone.

“Because Steve and Agent Simmons have probably just been kidnapped.” Peggy inhales carefully. “He wears a crucifix that belonged to his mother Sarah. He had it modified to send a distress signal when necessary. The tracker on it is currently moving south. I need all of you ready to move – this is extremely classified and your teams were already involved in this. I’m on my way there.”

Clint drops the phone, tripping on the lose carpet as his feet pound up the stairs to the apartment, yelling for the people loitering upstairs. “GET YOUR ASSES DOWN HERE NOW!!!”

\- - -

It’s uncomfortably chilly in the back of the van, New York in winter with no heater for the comfort of the transported prisoners. Three of their captors sit up front in the cab while Steve and Jemma huddle together for warmth.

“St-Steve, what does this man, this _Alexander_ , want with you?”

“He wants to lure in Bucky, probably. And he wants me to give him information,” Steve admits reluctantly. “As little good as that will do for him. I’m retired. It’s been a little over a year now – almost everything I have is months out of date, and anything that isn’t I’d rather eat a bullet than tell him.”

“Like stuff about Bucky,” she guesses sadly, staring down at her gloved hands. “I did think it was very unusual, how accepting you were of his…difficulties. It really sounds like something straight out of a science fiction comic book. But I suppose, if you already knew…”

“I did,” he whispers. “I’ve known this whole time. I just didn’t know how to tell Buck the truth without everything else looking like a lie, too. He was so…lost when I met him, and I was on the verge of retiring anyway. All I wanted was to make sure he was going to be okay, I figured there wasn’t any harm in that. But then I got attached, and I stayed, even when I knew it was time to move on. I don’t…I’m not used to staying. But I got close to him and then wanted to be closer so bad I let myself believe it was safe.”

Jemma couldn’t help but recall Pierce’s words to Steve earlier. _Thrown away your life on one broken man._

But Steve says “And now someone I care about is probably gonna get hurt, and that’s gonna be on me.”

\- - -

“So he was spying on us?” Natasha asks quietly. Bucky’s eyes are on the carpet and Natasha is almost glad Steve isn’t here for this discussion, because she would be very tempted to punch him in the face right now.

“Steve is not a spy, Natasha.” Peggy replies, just as quiet. “He’s also not an agent. Fury will explain more, I’m afraid most of it is above even my classification. James…James are you okay?”

“Was it a lie, then?” he asks with quiet rage. “Was this whole thing just one big fucking scam?”

Peggy’s dark eyes soften, velvet-like. “No, James. Steve chose to be in a relationship with you. He chose to stay with you, long after the initial assignment had concluded, after even he chose to retire.” She sighs, something like regret in her face. “Longer than was prudent, clearly.”

“Are you honestly blaming this on Bucky?” Clint demands.

From in their kitchen, a voice says “Steve knew the risks, Agent Barton. Whether his choice was wise or not, it was his to make.” Nicholas Fury stands in the sunny dining room, draped in black leather and displeasure. “We’re ready – let’s move.”

Both teams fly into action, bursting from their chairs and racing down the stairs into their waiting vehicles. “We don’t have room for anymore in the car,” May calls to Natasha as she slips in the driver’s seat.

Fury sits in the driver’s seat of Clint and Natasha’s car. “Coulson, you’re with us,” he says, tone brooking no arguments. “Bring Johnson and Fitz. May, you’ll lead the back up team. Carter can fill you all in.”

Nobody says a word as Bucky takes shotgun. Daisy and Fitz sit in the cargo hold, Daisy squinting with interest at the device that monitors Steve’s tracking signal and Fitz occasionally calling directions up to the front. The other three squeezed in the back seat. Natasha stares with horror at Bucky’s pale face in the mirror. His face is blank and empty. “James?”

“Still here,” he grunts.

“Don’t leave.” It’s hard to say whether her tone is begging or ordering. “Please, don’t leave like this, James.”

“Trying not to,” Bucky responds tightly. “’S hard. Feel numb, Tasha.”

Fitz and Daisy stare at the back of his seat in a mixture of terror and concern. Natasha’s uncharacteristic pleading and Clint’s vaguely pissed off demeanor aren’t doing anything to reassure them.

“You’re gonna want to stay on board with us, Sergeant,” Fury remarks, breaking several traffic laws as he navigates them out of Brooklyn. He hands Bucky a strange electronic object that looks something like a phone or like the audio device Bruce gave him to deal with his nightmares. The front has a keyboard like one of the older models of BlackBerry, and the back has an interesting design on it: a silvery star surrounded by rings of blue and red, like the flag. “Turn it on. The passcode is 0-7-0-4-1-9-8-9.”

“That’s…Steve’s birthday,” Natasha says slowly. “Fourth of July.”

Inputting the passcode makes the screen briefly light up with ‘Buffering…’

The carfull of people hear ragged breathing and an unfamiliar voice says “Who do you report to?”

And Steve’s voice answers “Mickey Mouse.”

The man makes an impatient noise and then Steve grunts hard, all the air knocked out of him. He gives no other indication that he’d been hurt, just the huff of air as the hit connects with his body.

Sharply, with an edge of fear riding in her voice, Simmons says “Stop that! How do you expect him to give you any answers if you beat him to death?”

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut tightly, numbness creeping its way over his fingertips. Steve’s breaths sound wet and labored. Even with the mix of rage and betrayal swimming through his blood, his heart still pounds with a prayer of _please please please._ The unfamiliar man says, “He’s not giving me any answers as it is – maybe he needs more incentive.”

“I’ve already told you – I’m _RETIRED_ , you enormous shit-for-brains. I can’t give you anything you don’t already know.”

“You were the best in the business, Rogers, don’t tell me you haven’t stashed away something for a rainy day.”

Steve’s laughter sounds painful. “This ain’t even close to raining, Pierce.” Fury frowns mightily at the name. “You wanna hit me? Go ahead. I’ve been hit before.”

“Hm,” he muses, falsely pleasant. “Perhaps we are going about this the wrong way.” His voice goes off to the side. “Take the girl.”

Fitz makes a wounded, despairing sound.

“Are you goddamn deaf?!” Steve roars, even choking on his own blood. “Touch her and I will _MAKE YOU SHOOT ME_!”

“Then you had better start answering my questions, Agent Rogers!”

“Not an agent,” Steve says wearily, as if he’d said this before. “Nicholas J. Fury.”

“Fury? What about him?”

“You asked who I reported to,” Steve says carefully, as though explaining it to a slow child. “Fury, Nicholas Joseph. Appointed director in August of 2009. Tall, eye patch, real snazzy dresser. I’m sure you’ve seen him around.”

Bucky finds himself smothering the inappropriate urge to laugh. Hysteria is a helluva thing. 

“And when did you start reporting to Director Fury? The man’s had a very long career in this business.”

“August of 2009.”

“You don’t expect me to believe Fury recruited college students, do you?”

“He didn’t.” Now Steve is beginning to sound bored.

“Carter, then? Don’t bother glaring, Steven. I have reports here telling me that you and Margaret are close.”

“No, Peggy didn’t recruit me,” he says flatly. “We were introduced by a mutual friend after I took the job.”

“Wilson?”

Silence.

“Come now, Steven. You need to talk to me – who recruited you? If you don’t give me an answer I’ll make assumptions, and one of your friends could get hurt.”

“Stark.” Steve bites out.

“ _Stark_ recruited you?! That’s absurd – Tony was a fourteen-year-old boy in 2009. I do know that you met in college, but at least make an effort, Steven.”

There’s the sound of a dull slap and everyone flinches. “Stark, Howard Anthony,” Steve hisses venomously. “I was hired November 6th, 2005 at Brooklyn Hospital Center, Maria Stark Memorial Children’s Ward.”

“You’re telling me Howard Stark went up to a sixteen-year-old boy and asked him to be SHIELD’s top informant?” Pierce doesn’t sound annoyed this time – instead, he sounds intrigued.

“I’m telling you Howard Stark was a _genius_ ,” he replies coldly. “A genius who needed an informant that would look harmless. He saw a sick child with no family, no friends, and no future. A boy whose life was worth nothing and they both knew it.” Bucky looks tortured at this and Natasha digs her nails into Clint’s shirtsleeves. “I wanted to do something worthwhile with whatever life I did have. Howard gave me some of the most cutting edge medical treatment available and in exchange, I went wherever they needed me. Fury was the last director I worked for, but not the first.”

“So, you were his personal agent,” Pierce concluded, sounding satisfied.

“Not. An. Agent.” Steve snarls again. “But yes. My job was to provide specific intel directly to the head of SHIELD.”

“What kind of intel, Steven? I was told you dealt with particularly sensitive information.”

Radio silence.

“You are going to tell me, or I’ll leave Agent Simmons alone in a room with the other men on this base.”

In the far back, Fitz and Daisy both growl dangerously.

Steve breathes in with another wet, rattling sound. “I’m a con artist, a professional double-cross,” he croaks. “SHIELD’s version of the IRS. An agent’s worst nightmare. Fury’s a drama queen, so he calls us _The Scourge_.”

Natasha is glaring at Fury, whispering viciously “You told me that was a _myth_.”

Fitz gasps. “Oh my god, Daisy. It was him – he’s Jemma’s Lady in Black.”

“She said that was a woman,” Daisy whispers. “A blonde, yeah, but a woman.”

“She said she couldn’t see their face well – they were wearing a bandanna with a skull over the mouth and nose. They were blonde, with blue eyes, around her height, and quite slender,” he whispers back. “We assumed that meant the Lady in Black was a woman. But blonde, blue eyes, slender, about Jemma’s height – sounds familiar, right?”

Pierce was saying “The legend of the Scourge is enduring but has no basis in any fact as far as I can tell.”

“Why do you think the legend endures?” Steve asks. “We _do_ exist, but we only report to the director themselves. It’s hard to pin down a job when you don’t who could be doing it at any given moment.”

A quieter, meeker voice says “Mister Pierce – you have a call from Berlin coming in.”

“We’ll continue this later, Steven.”

“Can’t wait.”

He and Jemma are both left in silence.

Daisy says “Anybody wanna explain what _the Scourge_ is?”

“It’s just like he said,” Coulson says tiredly. “They’re like the Internal Revenue Service of SHIELD. According to the legend, if the Director starts to question an agent’s loyalty to the organization, they can send a special group of individuals after you to investigate you.”

“We call them ‘the Scourge of the Underworld’, and I was dumb enough to think it was just a rumor, too.” Natasha says bitterly. “Supposedly, they hide in plain sight. They look like ordinary civilians because they are – but their entire purpose is to collect evidence on their target to determine guilt or innocence and hand over the information to the director.” Still glaring at Fury, she adds “I’ve heard they have the power to execute agents themselves if they believe they’re guilty.”

Bucky flinches.

Fury sighs in the face of her wrath and says, “The Scourge have been given full authorization to use lethal force.” Clint and Natasha flinch this time. “But only if they have reason to believe their life or the lives of bystanders are in immediate danger. They’re all civilians and most of them aren’t suitable for regular combat, Steve included. I had Johnson on the consideration list, until I was convinced placing her on that level of isolation was a bad idea."

“It _was_ him, wasn’t it?” Daisy demands, audacious as ever.

“What was him?” Bucky asks.

“You remember, Uncle Buck – the Lady in Black. The person that came up and saved Fitz and Simmons when Ward was trying to fucking drown him in the atrium fountain. That wasn’t a lady at all, was it, Fury?” Daisy’s eyes gleam with tears, Fitz shuddering beside her at the memory. Frankly, as upset at Natasha and Clint are, Steve’s gonna have her vote just for that act alone. “The lives of bystanders were in danger and he knew it. That was Steve.”

Quiet but firm, Fury says “It was Steve.”

“Was Ward his target?” Natasha demands. She’d heard the story and frankly thought that, traumatized and half-dead from Ward’s repeated attempts to drown both of them, Simmons had hallucinated her ‘lady in black’ and had shot her former teammate herself.

“He wasn’t,” Fury answers, which she suspected.

“Was I?” Bucky asks.

“Yes and no. After your recovery from HYDRA, I did have him sent to monitor you, in the general sense of tracking your welfare. I knew Clint and Natasha weren’t reliable reporters. But he did retire fourteen months ago, and on that day in the atrium, you were not the target of his investigation.”

The car goes silent as Jemma whispers over the comms. “Are you okay? How are your ribs?”

“Nothing that hasn’t happened before,” Steve sighs.

“That isn’t reassuring.”

“Sorry, kiddo, it’s the best I can do.”

“Any plans for getting us out of here?” Simmons says, mostly joking.

“Mmm…six. But all of them involve getting hold of a weapon. Preferably a pistol, but I wouldn’t say no to a knife.”

“You can fight?” Simmons squeaks “I thought you said you weren’t an agent!”

“I’m not, but I was the Head Spook for almost six years. The agents I’m sent to investigate are some of the most dangerous and I’m very good at what I do. Just ask my last boyfriend - oh, no, I suppose you can’t,” he adds thoughtfully.

“Why?”

“I killed him.”

Simmons inhales sharply. “You _killed_ him?”

Steve laughs weakly before groaning in pain. “You don’t need to look so worried, Jemma. He wasn’t a nice man, I promise. He was well on the way to attempting sexual assault with me by the time I had the evidence on him I needed, and by then it was too late to stop him with anything but a bullet.”

“You sound like you’ve had an…absolutely awful life, Steve.” Jemma’s voice is small and frightened. “He tried to…?”

“No, but I have no doubt he would’ve within a week or so,” Steve says, sounding almost alarmingly calm. “He was gradually escalating his aggression toward me. Finding out he handed your friend over to HYDRA was less than surprising.”

Every but Fury, along with Jemma, yelps “Rumlow?!”

Except that Jemma adds “We’ve been trying to find him for _years_. Natasha spent nearly every day of her remaining tenure trying to find the man who turned Bucky over to Zola and Schmitt.”

“That piece of SHIT!” Bucky snarls, the passengers jumping. He remembers what Steve admitted – was it really only a week ago? – that his previous boyfriend had been too rough with him, had caused him pain. The same man who’d helped people electrocute Bucky, and shove needles through him, and whip him with chains got to touch Steve, got to hold him, and he’d _deliberately_ mistreated him?

Bucky feels so numb, so cold, and after the day he’s had, he almost welcomes it.

“I dropped a building on him. In Lagos.” Steve actually sounds like he’s smiling at the memory, his voice filled with satisfaction at the very idea. “He was my target in the atrium, you know, but the whole building was in such chaos I ended up getting kind of…sidetracked.”

“And I’m glad you did,” Jemma says faintly.

Fitz and Daisy have a frantic whispered discussion in the cargo hold and then Fitz  calls out “GPS says they’re headed to an old military base in New Jersey, Director!”

Bucky’s eyes are fixed on the front windshield, his gaze empty and cold. Remote as Siberian winter.

Filled with dread, Clint leans forward and asks “ _Soldat?_ ”

 _“Ya gotov otvechat_.” Bucky answers in a low monotone, eyes flat. _Ready to comply._

“No, no, don’t leave,” Natasha begs, reaching to gently touch Bucky’s shoulders. It’s hard for Clint to watch this, hard to see his friend begin to disappear and his wife’s heart breaking. Her voice breaks and he can see the way her eyes shine, glossy and tragic. “Come back, James.”

“Leave him be,” Fury says, though not unkindly. “We might need the Soldier for what’s coming.”

“He may never come back though,” she whispers, quickly wiping her eyes as she squeezes Clint’s hand. “Dr. Banner already warned us about that – any time the Soldier takes over, there’s a small chance James will never return.”

Quietly, Coulson says “Natasha, I don’t have any doubts that we can get him back, but until we can recover Steve and Simmons, the stress is probably going to make him slip right back down again.”

\- - -

Steve shifts restlessly, knees aching on the cold cement floor. His arms have been bound above his head and his ribs ache sharply with every inward breath. He’s had one broken before and it doesn’t feel that bad, but it stills hurt like hell. Blood has dried over his mouth and chin, a coating that’s tacky, stiff, and cold. “Simmons,” he whispers urgently “How far can you move?”

Jemma is chained to the floor by her ankles and wrists and she shuffles awkwardly forward to reach him, stopping a little less than a foot away. “So close,” she moans “And yet – ”

“No, no, that’s perfect,” he says, angling his right side toward her. He wriggles around until his coat pocket is positioned near her hand. “There’s a bottle of medication in this pocket. I need it soon. Try to reach for it.”

She does, her fingers straining the cuffs to tug on the distant pocket, whimpering at the increase of pressure on both ankles and wrists. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I can, Steve. My arms aren’t long enough.”

“Shit.” He lets his head hang, panting painfully as his heart skips, every missed beat acting like an elbow to the sternum, each one nauseating and acutely felt. He normally takes the pills immediately prior to eating breakfast – which of course means that he didn’t take them this morning, and that was hours ago. It’s times like these he wonders why he didn’t opt for a pacemaker. “Fury, I really hope you’re on the way with the fucking cavalry right about now, because this is about to get ugly.”

“What’s happening?” she asks, face filled with silent alarm. “Why?”

“I’m pretty sure either Fury or Coulson will have figured out where we are by now. Unfortunately I’m also pretty sure they’re gonna be too late, because I’m going to faint in less than an hour.”

Their eyes meet. “What do you need me to do?”

“If I faint and Fury comes to get us, call an ambulance and tell the driver I have “Long QT” and that I didn’t take the medication this morning, then show them the bottle." He hesitates for a long moment before saying "If I start having a seizure, don't panic. That's...normal."

"What do I do if Fury never arrives?" Jemma demands.

"We're thinking positive thoughts here, Simmons."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 9/3/2018
> 
> Garbage, all night long.


	8. then these delights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally fixed the story summary yay! 
> 
> Contains descriptions of a vague identity disorder and disassociation - you know, just Winter Soldier stuff.
> 
> Okay, this one I am kind of sorry for :(

Clint sees the sign for Camp Lehigh as he takes the audio transmission device from Bucky’s unresisting hand. “This is it, Director,” Fitz says. “They’re holding Rogers and Jemma somewhere on this base.”

They’ve parked some distance away to avoid being noticed, Coulson making a short, very quiet call to May to let her know. They are outside of the darkened vehicles, and Fury says “Coulson, take – motherfucker!”

He cuts off with a curse as Bucky, with his hollow eyes and murderous stride, begins marching by himself toward the camp. The Soldier has a one-track mind, focused to the point of near-danger, all other commands out of his attention.

PRIORITY: ACQUIRE TARGET STEVEN ROGERS

The rest of them scramble for their gear, struggling to catch with him before Bucky disappears like a ghost through the brush when Jemma’s voice makes the transmitter crackle to life. “Steve…Steve, can you hear me?!”

There is no answer.

“He’s lost consciousness,” Coulson says somberly, confirming their fears. “This rescue mission is now a life or death emergency. Barton, Romanov, you’re with me and Barnes. The rest of you need to gather as many people in this facility as possible – but remember that your priority is going to be finding Alexander Pierce.”

Unfortunately, as single-minded as the Soldier is in this state, he’s not very good at subtly or covert operation. All three of them find themselves hanging back and avoiding fire as he barrels straight onward, using the metal arm to smash through any poor fool unlucky enough to encounter him – or, even more foolishly, stop him.

PRIORITY: ACQUIRE TARGET STEVEN ROGERS

It took three levels to find Steve and Simmons, and by then, Simmons was sobbing over the radio. “Help! Help me! My friend is sick! HELP ME!”

The Soldier broke the door down, punching through the steel plating with his left fist and unlocking it from the other side. Simmons’ voice becomes an echo, her faint sigh of “Thank god. Bucky.” repeated louder through the radio in Clint’s hand. “Bucky – hurry! Steve is – oh, no, no!”

Natasha and Clint get stuck around the corner, returning fire on half a dozen people farther down the corridor, but Clint is still holding the radio. “Bucky – Bucky you can’t – _vy poslushayete menya!”_

_You will listen to me!_

Clint and Natasha stare at each in fear, knowing that Jemma can handle herself, and dreading that she has had to shout at Bucky to get him to listen.

One track mind.

They try to move further up toward the holding room, but reinforcements appear to be called up to their positions. They’ve killed four, but there’s a dozen more being flagged from another floor. “I really hope Fury and May are having an easier time with this,” Clint sighs “Because I’m pretty sure we’ve drawn every HYDRA goon from here to Manhattan.”

\- - -

_“You will listen to me!”_

Jemma pants with exhaustion in her chains, watching the flicker of doubt pass over the Soldier’s face as his eyes are drawn again to Steve’s limp body hanging from the ceiling. Steve’s already had one seizure and could have another at any moment, and she worries that the Soldier handling him while he has another one would unintentionally injure him. The Soldier is sometimes unconscious of his level of strength in a way that Bucky never is. It makes her a bit nervous, actually.

The Winter Soldier has always obeyed her without the slightest hesitation. While she was working undercover, Jemma never had to coax him or repeat her orders. When Bucky was first being rehabbed from his conditioning and slipped in and out almost on an hourly basis, Jemma had tried assisting Clint with learning to handle the Soldier. Unfortunately, only _Bucky_ knew Clint – to the Soldier, he was a stranger, and with Jemma in the room, he continuously deferred to her calm and familiar presence.

It says a lot that he is willing, even in this state, to ignore the voice of his favorite handler in favor of his concern for Steve. “Free me, please,” she orders gently. “So that I can assess him.”

Oh dear. Perhaps she should have phrased that more forcefully.

PRIORITY: ACQUIRE TARGET STEVEN ROGERS

The Soldier stomps forward, yanking the chain anchors clear from the floor, making her yelp as her whole body is jostled by the force of it. Before Jemma can stop him, he marches right back to Steve and does the same thing to the one in the ceiling, using the force of the metal arm to pull the anchor straight from the concrete. Still unconscious, Steve’s slight weight drops into the Soldier’s waiting arms.

“Did you really just disobey me?” she demands, more in honest disbelief than any kind of true anger.

Bucky flinches and half-turns away, as though to hide, cradling Steve closer to his chest. Frightened, possessive, and Jemma realizes, _he thinks I’m going to order him to give up Steve._

“Okay, okay, it’s alright, you can have him,” she murmurs, low and soothing. She sighs, hating that she has to do it, but she needs to reign the Soldier in so that Steve can get some help. Jemma snaps her fingers at him, making her voice sharp and authoritative. “ _Mne, mne!”_

_To me, to me!_

His spine straightens at the order, finally obeying completely for the first time. “Give me your phone and your pistol,” she orders, and when this is also followed, adds “Good, now hold still.”

The Soldier shifts uneasily when Jemma touches Steve, but the obedience is too ingrained for him to dare attempt to contradict the order with her standing right in front of him. Jemma holds her fingers to Steve’s neck, feeling the pulse rate – unsteady, but going reasonably strong, considering the circumstances.

“Jemma,” Clint pants, walking into the room, out of breath and grimacing at a graze over his bicep. “Jemma – woah!”

She supposes the three of them do look like a bit of a disaster. She and Steve are both pale and clammy from the cold quarters, and Jemma still has the metal cuffs attached to her arms and legs, bruises blooming underneath both of them from tugging on the restraints. Steve has dried blood over the lower half of his face and bruises over the rest, and is completely motionless in Bucky’s arms, who holds him while dead-eyed and silent.

“ _Zima_ ,” Jemma commands, “Give Steve to Clint and provide cover.”

His pale eyes glimmer with brief uncertainty and Jemma, feeling both proud that he dares consider disobeying and worried by how erratic his behavior is, snaps her fingers again, a trigger he understands means urgency, means ‘obey or be punished’. “ _Davat, davat!”_

_Give, give!_

He reluctantly does so, and she repeats “Provide cover and get us out of here, please!”

“Coming your way!” Clint calls to Natasha as she comes from the other side of the corridor, a smear of blood across the left side of her cheek.

“We’re leaving,” Jemma adds grimly, taking the rear with Bucky’s pilfered pistol as her weapon, taking point with the gun in her right hand and dialing Bobbi (closest to the top in the contacts list) with her left. “Steve’s already had one seizure, preparing for transport with Coulson and Delta.”

“Taking fire, text the hospital name and number when you get there,” Bobbi says. In the background, there is the sound of gunfire and Peggy Carter swearing very colorfully in her proper English accent. “I’ll tell Fitz you’re alright.”

“Thanks, Bobbi.” More quietly, she adds “Love you all.”

“And we love you, _printsessa_.”

\- - -

Clint, with a bandage around his upper arm, is pacing the waiting room as Natasha sits rigidly perched on the edge of her seat. Jemma had sent the text when they arrived nearly an hour ago, thankful that Clint carries lockpicks literally everywhere so that she doesn't have to walk around in chains, and the rest of the time is occupied with trying to calm the Soldier down (i.e., preventing him from storming into the room where they are taking care of Steve). Both Clint and Natasha watch her while also pretending that they are not.

It would seem that the Soldier still prefers Jemma to be his handler, which is unfortunate but unsurprising.

The part of Bucky that liked being bossed around had been twisted in this mindset, deformed, until the Soldier became uneasy and erratic without clear direction. Clint and Natasha were never okay with the idea of treating Bucky like a trained animal, but Jemma, god help her, has learned to become good at it. At the time, both of their survival had depended on it, though that didn’t make her less ashamed. But for the moment, she pushed aside that feeling and focused on soothing the Soldier’s nerves.

If Bucky is a teddy bear, placid until riled past his endurance, the Soldier is a racehorse, high-strung and perpetually on the edge of his nerves, always ready to bolt at the slightest jerk of the reins, and this situation is not helping. Jemma rubs both hands down each of his arms, unflinching from the prosthetic and keeping the movements gentle, but nice and firm, showing him the courser texture of her palms and silky skin at the back of her hands, the smooth curve of every fingernail with each of their dull edges, and the fleshy rise at the base of her thumb. The Soldier starves for touch at all times, craves and fears it.

Bucky’s life was violent and terrifying and frequently full of pain, but it was full of love, and trust, and moments of joy. Despite a difficult and horrifying child, he’d made a happy life for himself, and he was kind man, a good man.

The Soldier knew no kindness before Jemma was moved up enough to be entrusted with overseeing the Winter Soldier project. No peace, no mercy, no dignity. For him, Jemma was the first, the origin of comfort and hope. She knows this, because Bucky has told her so, and she hopes, eyes itching and throat tight, that somewhere in that distant mind, this is still the case. “You’re okay, you’re okay, _Zim_ _a_.” She can feel him shiver at the sound of her voice, the flicker of recognition as he begins calming down. “That’s right, it’s me. It’s the _printsessa._ ”

Despite this, she can tell that he’s not going to settle. The echo of Bucky’s affection and concern for Steve is too unnerving for the Soldier’s limited capacity to express himself, and it leaves him twitchy and with a fragment of something pathetic and tortured inside that hollow stare. It pulls on her, urges her to make it right. “It’ll be all right, _Zima_ ,” she soothes. “Steve will be all right. Natasha, Clint, come here.”

“He likes you better,” Clint says. His tone is neither angry nor accusing but filled with exhaustion and sadness. “You're better for him.”

“I know,” Jemma says patiently “But this is the perfect time for you to practice. He isn’t – just keep it simple. He’s not stupid, exactly, but he’s...”

“Young,” Natasha says quietly, and the Soldier’s eyes drift to her slowly. She holds out her left hand, snapping the fingers on the right to make it clear that she is giving an order that she expects him to obey. “ _Idi ko mne.”_

_Come to me._

Clint hates doing it, hates having to push him around and give commands, which is why he’s the least effective among them as a handler but tends to be the most successful at preventing him from slipping down into it in the first place.

The Soldier moves toward her, reluctantly, and Natasha feels regret, feels pain that she wasn’t able to hold it together better when he was first recovering. She wishes that she could’ve been less hysterical, less emotional when this whole situation first began. That they both were really. To be fair to both of them, the initial recovery effort was made worse by Bucky being taken to the psychiatric facility.

They hadn’t been able to return until both of their contracts were over, especially in the chaos left by HYDRA’s attempt at an internal coup. Neither of the Bartons possessed any legal power to change the situation at the time – Bucky didn’t have a next of kin, hadn’t seen his sister Rebecca is over ten years at that point, and both of his parents were deceased by then. It took nearly the entire remainder of Natasha’s tour for Clint to finally win that battle in court. The judge agreed that Clint’s devotion was admirable and that being locked up and isolated clearly wasn’t helping James Barnes’ mental health.

 _But maybe_ , Natasha thought, as he approached her with caution, maybe if she’d been able to be more detached about the whole thing, the Soldier wouldn’t be telegraphing fear with every step. “Sit down, _Zima_ ,” she orders, quiet but firm, pointing to the seat beside her. “Here.”

He is reluctant when she reaches out to him but submits to her wishes, letting her tuck the hair hanging over his eyes behind his ears. “It’s Natalia,” she tells him. “You’re with Clinton and Natalia, and everything is going to be all right, James.”

His empty gaze flickers – was that confusion? – but he gives no indication that he even heard her. She does feel him tense in the chair when Daisy and Fitz come barreling through the door toward their seats, going rigid at the sound of their approach. Lightning fast, the Soldier has a knife in his hand and crouches, poised to leap at them, and the pair stumble, Fitz uncertainly saying “Bucky?”

“Who gave him a knife?” Clint asks, exasperated. 

“Fitz,” Daisy mutters, clutching his jacket. “Stay still.”

 _“Otkaz, sdacha!”_ Jemma barks, snapping her fingers loudly. _No, yield!_

Daisy and Fitz both look taken aback by this, and the Soldier reacts to the sound of her voice, flinching back as though he’s been lashed with a whip, and recoiling again when Clint gently puts a hand on his back, murmuring an “At ease, Soldier.”

Jemma watches them all guiltily. “I’m sorry, but I have to keep a tight hold of him, especially now that he’s so wound up – he’s too fast and too strong for me to stop any other way.”

Clint has the presence of mind to murmur “ _Sdacha, sdacha_ ,” again to help him stay calm as Daisy turns to wrap her arms around Jemma, both of them bursting into tears now that the danger has officially passed. Fitz looks at the two of them and despite his slight size, manages to gather them both in a hug, with each woman lean enough to claim one of his shoulders to rest upon. He is dirty, sore, and bewildered and there is no other place he’d rather be at this very moment, with his fiancé and his sister.

Daisy opens her blurry eyes to see that Bucky, Clint, and Natasha are arranged in a similar fashion. Clint and Bucky crouching in front of Natasha’s chair while she speaks to them in low, soothing tones. Clint and Natasha are each holding one of Bucky’s hands, squeezing them together in a synchronized rhythm only they understand. Daisy, happy to let Fitz sandwich the three of them together, abruptly and painfully realizes that this relationship works so well because she’s seen it successfully modeled to her for the past five years by the people across from her.

“I was so worried, so worried,” Fitz whispers, kissing Jemma’s brows. His arm tightens against Daisy’s back, squeezing them as though he’s afraid that they will both suddenly slip away from him.

Jemma is laughing and crying at the same time, pecking him on the cheek, her fingers still tangled up in Daisy’s hair. “I knew you’d come after me, I knew it!”

Choked up, Daisy closes her eyes and grips each of them tighter, digging into the back of their shirts. “Of course we were going to – we’d never leave you behind.”

Natasha whispers “ _Sdacha_ ” again, and all of them turn to see Peggy Carter, disheveled and beaten, standing in the waiting room.

“Is he-?” Peggy stumbles in, a bruise darkening over her eye. “Steve? Is Steve-?”

Jemma looks up, feeling guilt stab at her. She’d texted the hospital they were moving to but hadn’t discussed Steve’s condition. Peggy is his best friend and given the secrets Steve was keeping, possibly the only one who’d care what happens to him since Bucky is…not available at the moment. “The doctors are working on getting him stabilized,” she says, peering up at her from beneath Fitz’s chin. “They say he’ll probably be conscious until late tonight or very early tomorrow morning. He’ll need to be hospitalized for a few days, probably because of his ribs.”

“Oh, thank god.” Peggy seems to have the strings that have held her up suddenly and brutally cut, her body sagging into the wall as she raises her chin to take a deep, ragged breath. The move reveals an alarming set of bruises in the shape of fingerprints around her neck. “Thank _god_.”

“If he was one of the Scourge,” Clint asks with a quiet, angry intensity. “How come the two of you are so close?”

She stares at him. “I see Steven couldn’t keep quiet,” Peggy huffs, running a distracted hand through her hair. “I didn’t know he was a Scourge when we met – I didn’t even know they existed. I knew that we both worked for SHIELD, it was impossible not to – we both knew the same circles of people. But the way he talked about his work with SHIELD, I thought he did something in Comms or IT.”

“So, he didn’t tell you?” Jemma asks, swiping at the streaks on her face.

“Not till afterwards, and that’s all classified. But that was always his favorite technique, you know. Steven never actually lied to me either. He was just unassuming and kind and allowed my assumptions to do the rest of the work for him. Whatever else you may think of Steven, I can promise that he’s never told any of you an outright lie.”

“And you think that makes all of this okay?” Natasha demands in a low growl.

“Only James can decide that, I won’t presume to know what he thinks.” She almost doesn’t say it, but she thinks that there needs to be a lot less omission if the Bartons are ever going to forgive Steve for deceiving their friend. “When I dated Steve, there was always this edge of darkness to him. I tried for months to pretend it wasn’t there, told myself that he was harmless, and in the end, I think that’s why we couldn’t stay together. I saw it, but I didn’t want it to be there. I think James is smart enough to have seen it there, too – now that he understands why, he’ll have to decide if he’s comfortable with that.”

\- - -

“My goodness – are we all here for Steve Rogers?” the doctor asks, bewildered.

Natasha feels bizarrely happy that she hasn’t had to remind Bucky to yield for the past four entrances. The Soldier seems to have gone into a state of half-consciousness, at ease but always waiting to be called upon.

“Rogers, party of eight thousand,” Lance agrees sleepily, half-laying on Bobbi.

“He’s doing well, but we’d prefer that he have only a few visitors at a time,” the doctor says, blinking at the sheer volume of people in the waiting room.

Clint and Natasha look at Peggy, but she shakes her head. “Take James in. I don’t know a lot about the…situation, but I can guess he probably won’t be able to return to himself until he’s satisfied that Steve is safe.”

“ _Idem, Zima,_ ” Clint says, low enough that the doctor won’t be able to hear him.

Natasha adds under her breath, “ _Ostavatsya pozadi menya.”_

_Stay behind me._

The doctor leads them to an ordinary hospital room. Having a premonition, Natasha thanks her and asks to have a moment alone at the door. Only when she leaves does Natasha open it, somber at the scene waiting for them. Steve lays on a bed of stark white linens, purple-black bruises across his cheek and nose, his lip split open for the second time this month. Natasha finds that her premonition was correct – the moment that the Soldier can see him, he immediately breaks both of their previous direct orders to rush toward the bed.

Clint and Natasha both hang back, waiting in case he needs to be prevented from doing anything like removing the IV’s and whisking Steve away from the building. Instead, the Soldier hovers above him, hands twitching violently with the desire to reach out and touch, the whir of the metal arm loud and abrupt in the sterile quiet of the hospital room.

\- - -

TARGET UNRESPONSIVE

QUERY: ALIVE???!!!???  
  
ASSESSMENT: MACHINE INDICATES HEART RATE NORMAL, BREATHING NORMAL

SET TASK: STAY

SET TASK: PROTECT

 

The woman of blood red comes to stand beside It, says in her purring, throaty voice “You can touch him if you want.”

Her voice is…good...? Nice…? The sound makes something that aches within It hurt much less. But what that voice is saying is ridiculous. The thing does not have ‘wants’. Even though…even though _printsessa_ has given It… him?... a name, and the hawk-eyed man and the woman of blood red both use it, and even though they do not use the whips or the cattle prods when It doesn’t move fast enough or doesn’t understand what they want. It still does not have wants, It only exists in the moments of violence and action.

Her touch makes all the nerves tingle in Its arm, Its instincts all begin to warn him as she takes Its hand, even though her palms are silky and give It the urge to lay Its head in her lap (…why?). She pulls his hand toward the body in the bed and whywhywhywhy doesn’t It hurt? It always hurts when people touch It.

The thing is accustomed to the confusion and the hurt, but not this.

Blood-red woman puts Its hand on the Target – ‘the Star’, a voice whispers from deep within It – and It stares at Its hand over his hip. The sight makes the clatter in the thing’s head terrible, like a roomful of voices all trying to speak at once. The Star that was so bright is dim now, and part of It throws itself around Its mind-space, slavering for something to hurt, some kind of retribution to give.

It traces Its own glimmering hand whisper-soft over fragile ribs. It knows that It can crush through those in half a second, can snuff out the light of this Star forever, before anyone could stop It, and the knowing makes another part of Itself begin shrieking in rage.

 

PROTECTPROTECTPROTECT

SET TASK: STAY

 

It covers him with both hands, the Star’s small and fragile bones fitting beneath Its spread fingers in a way that satisfies an instinct that lives below the skin, quivers through Its blood and bone like an ancient song. The tension, the driving urge to seek and to hunt finally leaves It, and It sinks into the chair beside the Star’s sleeping body.

The thing rests Its cheek upon the Star’s hip, wondering perhaps if his light will rub off onto Its own skin. If perhaps this is what it takes for It to become a real person, the way _printsessa_ already seems to think the thing is.

\- - -

Natasha feels Clint tense beside her and she lifts her focus from the Soldier’s strange and peaceful calm to realize that Steve has woken up a little.

The whites of his eyes are red from the vessels bursting there as a result of the day's stress, and he is obviously confused and disoriented, hoarsely whispering “Bucky? Buck?” When he gets no reply, his fingers brush over the Soldier’s broad back. “ _Mishka_?”

Natasha’s stomach churns and she experiences a moment of terrible vertigo and nausea, hiding her face against Clint’s shoulder to swallow against it. She knows what Steve must see when he looks down at the head resting at his hip. The Soldier has dulled hollow eyes and a serenely empty face and Natasha is struck with the irrational urge to grab him by the shoulder and drag him away from Steve’s side, drag him from the inevitable judgment of Steve’s stare.

She knows what he looks like this way, she knows he seems like a machine or a dumb animal, and if Steve says one word about it, Clint may have to stop her from killing him right there in the bed. As it is, she’s not sure if Clint will be feeling so generous just now and is viciously satisfied about it.

The Soldier blinks, his voice a flat monotone. _“Ya prinesu printsessu?”_

_Shall I fetch the princess?_

Of course the Soldier thinks that he needs to bring Jemma in. And why not? For him, Jemma is the answer to every problem. She is the one who makes his hurts fade and brings softness and quiet to his mind and body.

She does not expect Steve’s face to break open, his eyes squeezing shut and reaching up to hide his tears as he starts to cry. Ugly, messy crying that shakes his whole body with silent sobs. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Steve chokes, bowing over the dark head of hair over his middle. “I never thought that you’d – Bucky, don’t do this to yourself, please. Don’t, don’t, I’m not worth this!”

Low, pathetic and concerned, he says “ _Eto sdedal chto-to ne tak?”_

_Has It done something wrong?_

_“ZIMA, VY NE ‘ETO’!”_ Clint barks, startling them both.

Steve gasps sharply in pain, both because the Soldier’s hands have tightened, putting pressure on the largest parts of the bruising on his ribs, and because while he can’t understand what the Soldier had asked him, his skills are enough to translate what Clint said.

_ZIMA, YOU ARE NOT AN ‘IT’!_

\- - -

It jerks back, trying to remove Its filthy self from the Star. It has hurt him and now hawk-eyed-man will punish It and for once, the thing is glad – It deserves to be punished for such a great offence. “ _Prosti, prosti!”_ It whispers, head bowed with shame. The thing deserves the cattle prod, how _could_ It be so disgusting?! “ _Prosti!”_

But the Star refuses to be separated from It, grabs onto Its arms, crying “No, no.” His long fingers cling to Its shirt, Its hair. The Star actually pleads to It, cries for It, “ _Vy ne ‘eto’! Ne ostavlyay menya!”_

_You’re not an ‘it’! Don’t leave me!_

It…Zima? relaxes back into the bedclothes. It… _he_ …will do anything, anything the Star wants if he will only stop weeping. To touch and not feel pain is uncommon enough, but the Star touches Zima with his _mouth_ , of all things, putting his lips on Zima’s face, brows, cheeks, and nearly touches Zima’s own mouth when It draws away in horror. “ _Gryaznyy!”_

Blood-red woman chokes out “You are not _dirty_!” before fleeing the room, unable to stop the stream of tears running down her face. Hawk-eyed-man follows after her, glancing back at them uncertainly.

The Star repeats her words to Zima, whispering it over and over, drawing his pale arms around the ungainly bulk of Zima’s lopsided body. Zima…does…does not have words for the way he feels when the Star touches him, the way he refuses to be parted from Zima. It feels like…light.

But the Star grows weak and slumps back down to the bed. He makes sounds of devastation when Zima moves from his side, so Zima lays his head back on his hip and stares up at him.

 _Cow eyes_ , one of the white-coats once said, flashing their razor-lights into his face. _Dumb as a post. No more intelligent than livestock._

The Star does not seem to think Zima has dumb cow’s eyes. He strokes Zima’s hair and whispers pretty-sounding words in his silky pearl-colored voice that Zima can feel in his toes.

Zima closes his eyes and breaths in the smell of starlight. Zima loves his kind _printsessa_ but perhaps she will not mind if Zima serves the bright, lovely Star?

\- - -

Steve lays awake long after Bucky has fallen asleep in his lap. His heart is a destroyed husk left in his chest. There is no apology he could ever give that will equal the tragedy of this broken creature he’s turned Bucky into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 9/4/2018
> 
> Rockin' the trash box, rock the trash box!


	9. my mind might move

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve must face his decisions.
> 
> Comic references for the win!

Friday, December 29th, 2017

Steve throws his keys down onto the dinette table sitting beside the front door. He hasn’t been inside his studio apartment in nearly a week, so the entire space is freezing and echoes with forceful silence. Coulson and May were nice enough to give him a ride back to Brooklyn from New Jersey, and with no glaring from their team – in fact, Daisy and Fitzsimmons in particular seems to be his biggest fans.

He supposes, given the knowledge of his actions on that day in the atrium, that isn’t surprising coming from Fitzsimmons, but Daisy _adores_ Bucky and Steve’s actions toward him have been…unforgivable. She’d kept glancing at him as they approached Red Hook, eventually asking him: “Are you sure you’re going to be all right, Steve?”

“Yeah, not the first time I’ve taken a couple knocks. Sam will be by in a little while, we’ve got some stuff to polish for the new issue.”

Of course, then Coulson had discovered that Steve was a comic books artist and went a little berserk, especially after hearing that he was part of the team for the Avengers series – and technically speaking, Captain America, also known as Chris Evans in civilian life. Steve could tell Daisy had wanted to say something more but seemed to reconsider it every time she opened her mouth.

He’s depressed, freezing, and all he wants is to wash off the hospital smell, curl up in his own bed, and cry some more. Instead, Sam is going to come over so that they can finalize the work on the upcoming issue being released next month – Black Widow’s introduction to the series. Already exhausted by the mere idea, Steve collapses into one of the chairs at the table and puts his face in his hands.

This is how Sam finds him twenty minutes later, banging through the front door lugging a tote bag filled with all of their in-progress concepts. “Now, are you sure you’re okay to be – Steve?” Sam is stunned. “Steve, man, are you _crying_?”

“No,” Steve sobs with his rigid back and tensed up shoulders. “No, I’m _not_.”

“Oh, thank god,” Sam sighs with relief at this obvious lie. “The dam has finally broken. Keeping that shit in will give you cancer, Steve.”

“Sam, I think I’m gonna need your help.”

“I’m here for you, pal, you know that.” Sam rubs his back and waits patiently for Steve to give him a bigger explanation for the water works.

\- - -

“Are you absolutely sure that you feel better?” Clint asks, for what feels like possibly the thirtieth time that day, on their way to the grocery store. No more bodega visits for him for a while.

“Yes,” Bucky says, successfully managing to hide his annoyance. They’ve been kind of halfway through freaking out about this for the past twenty-four hours, ever since they realized that he was no longer in the mind of the Winter Soldier. “I feel completely normal.”

“It’s just that, usually, you kinda seem like…”

“I’ve been hit by a semi-truck and dropped off a cliff, yeah,” Bucky agrees dryly.

Natasha decides to switch tracks. “What do you think is different this time?”

Bucky is silent for so long that Natasha assumes either he has no idea, or he would prefer not to discuss this anymore. “This time, I let myself just…leave.”

All three of them yell as Clint very nearly crashes the car into a light post, before quickly pulling over onto the side of the road.

Natasha stares forward, gripping her seat belt with white knuckles “You…you _chose_ to…?”

“Ah, so that’s why Zima was such a pain in the ass,” Clint says, trying to make jokes while also taking deep, calming breaths. “You were backseat driving.”

Bucky’s brows draw together at the new name. Clint and Natasha usually refer to his alter ego by the project name, the Winter Soldier, or as ‘Soldat’ which is what Schmitt and Zola called him. ‘Zima’ was generally the name Jemma used. She said that a person needed a name, and while the Soldier was not Bucky Barnes, that didn’t mean he was not a person.

Natasha was clearly trying to maintain her own sense of composure. “Why did you choose to leave yourself? Why would you risk not returning?”

His brow furrows further. “I wouldn’t leave without being certain that I’d come back to you, Natalia. I know Banner is worried about that primary and secondary personality shit, but I’m getting better at…functioning harmoniously.”

She’s supremely annoyed to find herself getting weepy again for the second time in just a week. “But something could have _happened_ to you. Zima is dangerously focused on his goals, to the point of carelessness.”

“You were with me,” Bucky says, sounding a bit puzzled. “Why would anything have happened? I was with you both.”

Clint is feeling teary-eyed himself. Both of the Bartons turn to stare at him, sitting in the back seat with an eerie almost zen-like calm. Clint mutters “You just…you gotta warn us before you say shit like that, ya know?”

“I’ll remember that for next time,” he says with a smile, shaking his head. “I let myself leave because I was freaking out, and I thought it would be easier to handle as the murder-bot than as me.”

Even though nearly inaudible, Natasha’s voice is intense. “He isn’t a murder-bot. Don’t call yourself that.” She makes a motion to scratch her cheek that is totally not to cover her wiping her face. “And he didn’t handle it well, but that wasn’t Zima’s fault. I don’t-I’m not very good at helping him. Jemma says we need more practice with it.”

Without thinking, Bucky blurts out “He thinks you have a nice voice.” It’s not easy, to seek a specific section in the hazy bits of recollection he gets from the other half of his personality, but he can feel the threads of it throughout – images, sounds, even smells. It’s painful, partly because the Soldier’s senses seem so much more acute than his own, and partly because pain is what that part of him is accustomed to. “Blood-red woman.”

“What?”

“That’s how he – how Zima thinks of you. ‘The woman of blood-red’ and ‘the hawk-eyed-man’. He thinks your voice is…” Bucky closes his eyes, struggling to put the description into words, knowing that the – that _Zima_ views the world in a very different fashion than he does. “Your voice is…scarlet and firelight. Chocolate-and-chili-flavored. That’s how he experiences it. He…he likes that a lot.”

“That is…insanely cool,” Clint says, already looking a little cheerier.

_But he likes Steve’s voice better than any sound he’s ever heard. Steve’s voice is pearl-colored, lustrous and shining, sweet-creamy-coconut flavored, gilded with silver and rose._

He has a feeling Clint and Natasha wouldn’t be happy to hear that. Zima’s overall impressions of Steve weren’t helping Bucky’s own confused and angry feelings. Prodding that part of his memories provided strange pictures, images of Steve, delicate and sick in his hospital bed, his skin giving off glimmers of light, crying when Zima tries to flee the room and clinging desperately to his wrecked body.

Bucky gasps inaudibly as a burst of sound filters through him, the shimmering voice like shattered mother-of-pearl. “ _Vy ne ‘eto’! Ne ostavlyay menya!”_

_You’re not an ‘it’! Don’t leave me!_

That part of him was a sad, monstrous ruin – and Steve had begged and cried not to be left behind by Bucky’s brain-dead body-double. Immediately, he feels guilty for that thought – Zima’s extremely limited cognitive abilities aren’t even remotely his fault, and his sense of self-worth is even more limited. Surely some of Steve’s feelings are genuine if even this part of him is anything but instantly repulsive.

He wants to speak with Dr. Banner after the new year – he had some new ideas about improving his treatment.

\- - -

Sunday, December 31st, 2017

Daisy does feel a little guilty that she’s come back to bother Steve so soon, since this is technically a holiday. It just…doesn’t feel right that the two of these stubborn assholes are gonna leave things like this. She’s startled when Peggy Carter is the one who answers her knock, looking ill-tempered and a bit frazzled.

The bruises around her neck have faded, but her black eye looks worse than ever, yellowing and purple around her eye socket. Nevertheless, she has a small smile for Daisy and opens the door wider in welcome.

“Uh, hi, I was just checking up on Steve. Wanted to make sure he was all right?”

“Come on. Maybe if he talks to someone who isn’t me, he’ll stop being such a bloody stubborn wanker.”

She giggles nervously at Peggy’s colorful language and steps inside. Daisy’s first thought at seeing the studio is ‘ _Wow. Empty’_.

Steve is an artist, but the whole apartment is bare of any photos, pictures, or personal knickknacks, apart from a colorful white-and-blue patched quilt decorated with various-sized stars laying on top of the heap of blankets piled onto a twin-sized bed in the far corner. The furniture is all secondhand, appearing at first glance a shabby-chic style, but even those are in bland colors. An easel with a few spare lines sits by the tall, drafty windows where it will get the best light. There’s no television but a laptop is set up on a tray next to the ugly tan sofa. Peggy drifts back to the kitchen, pouring hot water from a kettle into a mug.

As it turns out, Steve is buried beneath that heap of blankets. Steve…doesn’t look great, to be perfectly honest. His eyes are bloodshot, his skin translucent-looking and papery, with shadows beneath his eyes and dry, cracked lips. “Stop fussing,” he says, made hoarse by illness, stopping to cough briefly. “It isn’t that bad.”

“You shouldn’t have left the apartment,” she scolds harshly. “Are you _trying_ to give yourself pneumonia?! It’s cold enough in your own bed without wandering around outside in the freezing rain!”

“I was taking a fucking _walk_ , Pegs,” he grumbles, but drinks the tea.

Daisy, unbothered that she was not, strictly speaking, invited to sit down, perches herself on the overstuffed couch. “How are you, Steve?” 

“I’m being harangued to death by an overbearing harpy,” he replies, glaring at Peggy. “How are you, Daisy?”

“A little sad,” she says with piercing honesty. “I thought I’d see more of you before the rest of the team has to leave for Tahiti.”

His expression shifts into discomfort. Steve really isn’t a very good liar, at least not when he’s blindsided anyway. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He stares into his tea with undue interest. “I’ve fucked this up real bad.”

“Yes, you have,” she says, not pulling any punches. “But…I don’t understand…you said that this was a real relationship? Do you…do you not want to be with him?”

“Of course I do,” Steve’s face is wooden, closed off, stiff. “But the damage is done and I’m not going to cause Bucky anymore pain.”

“That’s…kind of bullshit, Steve.” Daisy says calmly.

From the kitchenette, Peggy yowls like an angry cat and glares at Steve with a look that suggests she’s resisting the urge to pull out her own hair. “Oh, _thank god_!! This is what I’ve been trying to tell him for the past two days!” With more of a wheedling tone, she adds “Please, Steven. Don’t just pretend this is nothing.”

“I never said anything of the kind!” he objects, then spends thirty second coughing, deep, harsh exhalations that make Daisy’s chest hurt just to hear.

“No, you spent the first twenty-four hours crying with Sam – who was delighted, by the way. Absolutely delighted that you managed to show an emotion beyond resignation and vague disappointment. I almost feel sorry he doesn’t know.” She scowls. “And now you’ve gone straight back to your old habit of removing yourself from the whole experience as quickly as possible. Steven, this is not good!”

“What am I supposed to say?!” he yells back. “’Hey, sorry I’ve deliberately misled you about basically everything you know about my life and got one of your friends kidnapped with me. And by the way, didn’t mean to break you down into the traumatized shell of yourself. Oops.’ He has no reason to believe me, Peggy – every word I say is cause for suspicion now!”

“That doesn’t mean you say nothing!”

“To be fair,” Daisy points out in a reasonable tone. “He didn’t tell you about his past, either.”

“But I already knew about the Winter Soldier.” Steve grimaces and amends “Well, mostly I knew about him in the theoretical sense, anyway.”

“That isn’t really what I was referring to, but yes, he also didn’t tell you about that, either. And that could have gotten you really, really hurt, Steve. Especially since none of them knew you had any kind of combat skills.” She bits her lip, before adding “You’ve probably seen pictures of what the Soldier can do, but it isn’t the same as watching what he does, standing in a room and knowing he’s come for you. There’s a psychological effect to seeing him – it makes you freeze. Panic.”

Steve looks at her sharply. Daisy is composed, but her face is very pale. “No, I don’t know what that’s like. But you do – he’s come for you before, hasn’t he, Daisy?”

A brief jerk of the head serves as a nod. “Ward was…obsessed with me. But I refused to be the Eva Braun to his Adolf Hitler after I realized who he was. _What_ he was. Before he tried to kill Fitzsimmons, he was using Bucky to frighten me.” She chuckles darkly. “I couldn’t see it at the time, but in retrospect, I think that Ward was always insanely jealous of him.”

“Because Ward was in love with you?”

The question makes her grimace, but she says “Yeah, and Uncle Buck wasn’t exactly fond of him either. Fitz had told him some things, apparently, and…he, Fitz, tried to warn me in a roundabout way. It seemed silly back then – just a bunch of rambling about Ward seeing himself as an alpha male.”

“Ah, I see,” Steve says, nostrils flaring with irritation. Yeah, HYDRA assholes tended to view the world that way. “And I suppose that meant that he viewed Bucky as competition.”

“Yes, and Clint too, now that I think of it. Of course, you know that Clint doesn’t care enough to get into pissing contests like that. I think blatant aggression is weirdly beneath him. But Bucky…” She grimaces. “Bucky basically told Ward that anyone who acts like that much of an asshole is compensating for something else.”

“I imagine he didn’t like that.”

“Uh no.” She glances at him and smiles a bit sadly. “But I wasn’t going to let a dead asshole – thanks for that, by the way – ruin my relationship with one of my best friends. I wasn’t going to let him take that away from me, because removing Uncle Buck from my life would’ve been a kind of victory for him. I couldn’t stand that.”

Steve shakes his head. “There aren’t enough words to apologize for getting Simmons hurt and lying to him, never mind shoving him back down into that place, Daisy.”

With the simplicity of a true romantic, Daisy says “Then don’t use words, Steve.”

And Steve breaths “Oh.”

Peggy Carter smiles to herself. Maybe her friend isn’t as utterly hopeless as she feared. Stubborn, oh yes. But maybe he would manage to turn this wreckage of a heartbreak into something stronger.

_Thank you, Daisy Johnson._

\- - -

“Where’ve you been all this time?” Fitz asks, glancing up as Daisy walks through the door.

She gives a secretive smile. “I’ve got a new gig as Santa Claus.”

He and Simmons exchange a concerned look and Hunter sighs. “Are we gonna have to move back into the underground bunker? Coulson means well, trying to wait out the apocalypse and all, but I want to shoot most of you after an hour together.”

Three voices respond with “Shut it, Lance.”

Hunter shudders. “I should’ve known any kids of Coulson and May combined would be terrifying.”

Simmons smiles grimly. “You have _no_ idea.”

Before Hunter leaves earshot, Fitz calmly says “Do you think we should tell him about the alien invasion?”

Daisy’s eyes crinkle with the beginnings of a smile, even as her voice is somber and grave. “No, it’s kinder to keep him in ignorance. Geez, the photographs gave _me_ nightmares!”

“YOU THREE ARE THE SPAWN OF THE DEVIL!” Hunter hollers, and each of them smirk in unison, making him squawk “BOB, SAVE MEEEEE!”

\- - -

Monday, January 1st, 2018

The box sits on the kitchen counter and is wrapped in shimmering silver paper with beautifully curled gold ribbons, and Clint frowns at it. Natasha is the only person he knows with such fancy wrapping skills and those presents had already been unwrapped yesterday – admittedly a little later than usual because of the catastrophe the day after Christmas. There is a tag on it, but it doesn’t have the name of a recipient or the gift’s sender. Instead, it has a triangle and a circle with a squiggle in the center. Because Clint is an idiot but not actually stupid, he immediately summons Coulson with a whispered question “Do you think it’s a bomb? It wasn’t here yesterday. What’s that code?”

May peers over Coulson’s shoulder, surprise briefly showing on her features. “That isn’t a code. The package is addressed for Team Delta and Team Theta.”

“Oh, it’s Greek! Okay. Yeah, I wouldn’t have gotten that.”

“How is it you didn’t know your own team’s damn callsign?”

“I didn’t have to deal with that shit!” Clint says defensively. “That was kozel’s job.”

May clucks her tongue at him, clearly not impressed with Clint’s excuses.

“Pretty sure we know who this is from, then,” Coulson points out quietly.

Clint sighs, swearing under his breath. “Yeah. I suppose we ought to tell him.”

“But it doesn’t say that it’s for James,” May says, gesturing to the tag. “It says that it’s for Delta and Theta.”

“Let’s call the others in then.”

Natasha was eyeing the box flatly and Bucky couldn’t seem to stay in one spot. Sitting on the couch beside Bobbi, getting up and pacing around the mantel, walking to the window to stare out at the falling snow.

Clint, as unobservant as he was, couldn’t fail to notice that Daisy was practically vibrating in her seat. May’s tone was accusatory. “You know what’s in there.”

“I may have visited him, yeah.” she admits. “But no, I don’t know what’s inside. I just knew he wanted to send something.”

“Why did you visit him?” Natasha demands.

Quietly, Daisy says “Because he saved Fitz and Simmons. He was the one who put a bullet in my worst nightmare.”

Bucky looks to her. She can’t quite decipher his expression, it’s too closed off for her to puzzle out. “Open it, Daisy-bell.”

She unties the ribbons with a cautious hand. Daisy didn’t get gifts as a child – the nuns wouldn’t have permitted that level of frivolity and her mother was of the opinion that she didn’t deserve them. She’s gotten many presents since joining Team Theta, but this is so beautifully and carefully wrapped she can’t quite bring herself to just tear up the paper.

There’s a red envelope taped to the top just beneath the wrapping paper, with the triangle symbol of Delta neatly printed on the top. Daisy tries to hand the envelope to Bucky, but he shakes his head and backs away.

She sighs and opens it herself, reading aloud.

 

_“Dear Team Delta,_

_There are many things that I could say to excuse my wrongs, but they are for the most part both cowardly and inadequate. I didn’t need to tell you about my position to admit that I knew who you were – who you all were. I will say that while people in my role are considered full-time civilians, I’m not sure that I ever was. It was the only purpose I knew for my entire adult life and most of my teenage years._

_It’s a lonely and stressful way to live._

_I considered –”_ Here Daisy’s voice broke for a moment before she resumed the letter’s narration. _“I considered Daisy for training in the program her first six months in SHIELD. When she started, she was everything I look for in a recruit –disconnected from her biological family, innocent looking, and clever. But after seeing how attached she became to Theta, I realized that she would never survive the constant isolation and detachment you must develop to hold the position. Looking back, I’m not sure I survived it, either._

_Lies by omission are the best, you know. People rarely know the right questions to ask to make the answer hurt. It was my job to figure those out._

_The day I decided to retire, I looked into a mirror and I couldn’t recognize the son my mother raised. The artist. The first-generation immigrant. The Catholic. The son of a nurse and a soldier. I couldn’t see any of that anymore. The mask I put on was all that was left, and the only thing left of the person I used to be was a forgettable face and a handful of sad memories._

_Howard Stark found a boy who was willing to trade in his life and his identity for the work ahead of him. It was a worthy purpose, and I still feel that way even now. But I can’t help but think he also chose me because I was too young to understand what I was giving up – or why that should matter._

_I saw you, that day in the atrium. I saw all of you._

_Bucky…._

_When I met you, you were lost and broken and frightened.”_ Daisy has to stop again to dab at the corners of her eyes with the sleeves of her sweater. _“I wanted you to be okay again, and when Fury asked me to check on you, I can’t deny that I was happy to be able to find out. My retirement date got closer and closer, and I found myself reluctant to leave._

_Somehow, I convinced myself that this was for practical reasons – Sam and Tony already lived nearby, and Peggy and Angie were planning a move to Manhattan. Brooklyn was where I grew up and I told myself I would be going back ‘home’, despite knowing that home had been buried along with my mom._

_But this is the time to be honest, and I honestly got attached to you, Buck. In a way, to Clint and Natasha, too. I spent ten years avoiding it, and not all of my relationships were with agents I was targeting, but I managed to escape any hint of real connection, real affection, Peggy and Sam being the only true exceptions._

_Peggy Carter should be nominated for sainthood, because she’s spent eight years watching me cut myself off as soon as I got too close and verbally beating me over the head for it._

_I’ve never considered myself afraid of commitment, but I’m obviously afraid of something. Being seen, maybe? Very few people have seen who I really am and it’s always much uglier than they expected._

_I’m sorry, I’m babbling now._

_Please keep the gifts. I thought they would amuse you and they were created for your enjoyment. If you can’t bring yourself to keep them, donate them to a library or hand them off to a random child._

_The other item cannot be considered a gift, but if you want the entire truth, you’ll find it there._

_I do not and will not ask you to forgive me._

_I was proud of my work and I don’t apologize for my past, but I am sorry that I lied to you, and that I got Simmons hurt in the process. You don’t owe me anything, but if for some reason you ever need my help, you know where to find me._

_Yours, always,_

_SGR”_

 

Daisy peers curiously into the box and gives a surprised squeak. “Oh, Natasha!”

She takes a comic book out of the box, flipping it cover-side up.

“Tasha,” Clint breaths.

It is indeed Natasha, or a woman who looks uncannily like her, sitting on a couch. She sits so that the viewer is looking at her from between her wide-spread legs. It’s a pose easily made sexual, that in all honesty _should_ be sexual, but instead of seductive, her expression is sneering, challenging. Rather than focusing on her crotch or her breasts, Sam and Steve have placed emphasis on the careless angle of her legs and her heavy black boots. Her body language has an almost masculine air of dismissive power, her right arm slung over the back of the sofa with a pistol held casually in her hand, head tilted to the side. The title sits just over her left shoulder – “The Avengers Origins: Black Widow”.

“Oh my god,” Coulson whispers, entranced. “That isn’t supposed to be released for three more weeks. Natasha, are _you_ Scarlett Johansson?!”

“Who?” Hunter asks, squinting at the picture with interest.

“Black Widow is her superhero name,” Fitz pips up, blushing when everybody turns to stare at him. “ _What_? Like it’s that strange that I read comic books? Anyway, Black Widow is a code name. Her real name is Scarlett Johansson.”

Natasha is practically speechless. “I mean, I did agree to provide him with a character base. I thought she was going to be a minor side character!”

“Oh, no,” Fitz says, shaking his head. “Black Widow is one of the main Avengers. They’ve already done the reveal for Captain America and Iron Man – I thought the next one was supposed to be Falcon, though.”

Natasha watches Coulson’s eager face and sighs. “Alright, go ahead.”

Before she can change her mind, he grabs eagerly for the comic, with Fitz and more surprisingly, Bobbi both looking over his shoulder.

Daisy looks back into the box and exclaims “Oh, that’s so beautiful!”

Carefully, she lifts out a book that is clearly handmade, pages made of thick stock paper, the kind designed to be drawn on with heavy inks and paints. She holds it up to show everyone the cover. The title is perfectly drawn on in immaculate Showcard Gothic with golden ink – ‘Marvel Presents: The Circus of Hot Damn!’  

Beneath that is a grinning Bucky with Clint and Natasha on either side of him. They’re all dressed up in top hats and tall shiny boots. The men are both in fancy tails and glittering red and silver vests – Clint with his signature shades, Bucky with crisp white gloves – and Natasha is wearing a short dress in red velvet along with fishnet stockings, holding a whip in one hand and a riding crop in the other.

Laughing, Daisy immediately flips it open and gives a gasp of delight. “Oh my god, this is amazing! He wrote a comic about the three of you – I don’t mean a superhero comic, this is literally a story about you guys!” She scans through the pages, holding a hand over her mouth to muffle giggles as she reads on. “Natasha goes undercover for ‘the Circus of the Damned’ and the two of you end up having to join her so that she doesn’t draw any suspicion. It’s hilarious! He draws the three of you so well…”

She laughs harder, holding the book open. The two-page long panel shows Bucky and Clint entering the ring. Bucky is muttering **‘Keep it cool, Barton!’** while the blond man tugs nervously on his bejeweled bow tie, looking ill at ease.

The book is passed around, and Jemma gasps “Mack, that’s you and me! Wait, wait – we’re all here! We’re the circus performers!”

They were.

A panel shows a shirtless Mack – clearly the circus strongman – holding a grinning Jemma on his shoulder, who was decked out in a blue feathered headdress and long white gloves, and they only managed to spot more the longer they looked.

May and Coulson are spotted riding an elephant at the head of the circus procession, Hunter was a laughing trick rider on a motorbike riding backwards and upside down in a steel cage, Bobbi juggled swords and batons in a white leather leotard, Jemma and Fitz were the trapeze artists, and Daisy walked a tightrope while blindfolded with a terrifying grace.

One page shows Natasha with her velvet dress and whip, surrounded by snarling lions and tigers. A ring of fire haloing her head makes her vibrant hair shine with even more brilliance.

Another page shows Bucky cursing Clint’s name with an apple perched atop his head.

 

**‘I’m already missing an arm, you son of a bitch! Don’t shoot my eye out!’**

**‘Aw c’mon, think of the pirate cosplay possibilities~”**

**‘It’s metal, not fucking wood, and don’t shoot my _leg_ either!’**

 

Each depiction is beautifully and lovingly detailed, from Daisy’s gracefully positioned fingers and May’s tiny knowing smirk to the sparkle in Jemma’s eye and Bucky’s tousled hair.

Daisy can’t help but look at it, and see that barren, empty apartment with no personal items to decorate, nothing of the artist’s own skills on display.

Bobbi leans her chin on Bucky’s shoulder as he silently looks through the book, murmuring “It’s funny that he didn’t put himself anywhere in it.”

Quietly, Jemma corrects “He did.”

She goes back toward an introductory page and points to a figure standing slightly to one side of Natasha.

Steve is a skeleton man lingering at the edge of a page, face painted black, with the white outline of a skull overlaying his features. His slender form is encased in a long-tail coat. Even his hands are covered by gloves. He seems to being gazing at something off-screen from the panel, looking solemn and contemplative amid the splendid cheer of the circus production.

Those eyes are unmistakable, the blue looking especially vivid against the monochrome face paint, but without the proper context, Bucky never would’ve known that somber figure was Steve. Jemma, of all people, has that context. She murmurs “Interesting.”

Bucky’s voice has been stuck in his throat ever since Daisy said ‘Dear Team Delta…’, but Bobbi says “What is?”

Fitz is the one who answers, glancing between him and Jemma. She knows instantly that he has understood her discovery. Quietly enough that Bucky can pretend not to hear him, Fitz answers Bobbi with: “He sees himself as Death.”

“Guys,” Daisy has something in her hand. “You’re probably gonna want to come see this.”

She opens her palm and shows them the last item Steve had place in the box – a silver USB chip, with the symbols of Delta and Theta written in permanent marker, along with two other symbols.

Clint squints. “What’s that?”

“Huh,” Jemma says, peering down at it. “That’s…that’s a cuneiform star. From the Sumerians, I believe. It was used to symbolize the sky or the heavens, or even to describe the gods. The other one is just the biohazard symbol.”

“Steve said that was the whole truth,” Bucky finally speaks aloud.

Gently, Natasha says “Do you want us to leave?”

He shakes his head fiercely. “No. It has both symbols on it. I…I need you guys to be here. Plug it in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 9/4/2018
> 
> You know what it is.


	10. to live with thee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All the comic references. ALL OF THEM.  
> (not all of them, i don't have that kind of time)
> 
> Warnings: kind of off-screen character death, averted non-con/dub-con, and past torture
> 
> Excited for the finale? I know I am!

Simmons points out that putting the USB drive into a device with an internet connection is probably not a good idea, so Clint puts Nat’s laptop on airplane mode and attaches an HDMI to their very nice television. When he inserts the drive, only one file shows up – a video called “Family Vacation”. It was created on 02/19/2015 – two days after the undercover agents of HYDRA had tried to execute their coup.

Dryly, Mack said “What d’you wanna bet that ain’t a trip to Coney Island?”

Bucky takes a deep breath before saying “Play it, _ptichka_.”

\- - -

Apparently, besides the tac vest, skull mask, and pistol, Steve was also equipped with a camera feed, comms device, and microphone, and he was currently staring down from a balcony on one of the upper atrium levels of the Triskelion building. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he murmurs, pulling away from the edge. A bit sarcastically, as though he were a flight attendant, he says “This is your Head Spook speaking, I hope you’ve practiced in your spare time, because this is not a drill. I’m going to ask for your call signs and you’re going to give me your positions – if you don’t answer, I’m going to assume you’re already dead and will shoot you on sight if you are not. Let’s start with my lovely deputy phantom, Ms. Marvel.”

“This is Ms. Marvel, parking garage,” a female voice answers under her breath. “They’ve got guards stationed on every floor here, Cap. They’ve locked us in to the building. I’m gonna bet there’s HYDRA agents watching the doors in the main building as well.”

“Ghost Rescue Team?” Steve asks quietly, pulling out a silver case from beneath a desk. With a blurring speed, he begins assembling a pistol and attaching a silencer to it, then grabs several knives and stashes them on his person.

“Ghost Rescue Vision,” another female voice answers, this time with a gently emphasized Asian accent. “Medical Ward.”

“Ghost Rescue Hera,” a surprisingly familiar voice says. “With Fury, but he seems to be doing all right. Standing by on the executive floors, awaiting orders for aid.”

“Oh my god,” Natasha breaths, just as Bucky realizes where he’s heard that voice. “It’s Pepper!”

Clint’s eyes are like saucers. “ _Pepper_ is a Scourge?!”

This becomes even more surprising when Steve says “Hawkeye?”

Everybody turns and looks at Clint who raises his hands in a gesture of surrender.

A high voice replies for him, with a clear country club accent. “Hawkeye, currently holed up in the restroom on the thirtieth floor, texting my mother about why I’m not with her in SoHo right now.”

Steve sounds amused. “What are you telling her?”

‘Hawkeye’ snorts. “Oh, I’m not telling her anything. I’m setting up the phone to give an automatic message every time she tries to text me.”

Laughing softly, Steve retrieves a different silver case, gun in hand. “Daredevil?”

“Daredevil, legal offices, eighteenth floor,” a male voice says. Unlike the ladies, his accent is suggestive of a native New Yorker. “I don’t think anyone here actually knows what’s going on. They’re beginning to panic a little.”

“Keep them there by any means necessary,” Steve says grimly, picking up the case and moving across the hall. “I don’t want civilians scrambling around in the middle of all this."

There is heart-stopping moment for all of them when a HYDRA agent sees Steve coming out of the office. Steve, little shit that he is, pretends to kneel and set the case down before whipping out a knife and hurling it straight into the agent's neck.

“Oh, that won’t be a problem,” another male voice drawls in a curling British accent. “This is Fenrir and I’ve dragged Deputy Hill into the security control room and shot the lock off. We’ve disabled the elevators. Hill, do be a dear and tell my beloved Captain I’ve not kidnapped you so that he can refrain from beheading me.”

Maria Hill’s voice can be clearly heard in the background, saying “You’re extraordinarily lucky I haven’t shot your balls off. I’ve refrained because despite those ridiculous names, I do recognize your voices. I almost feel better.”

Fenrir purrs “You are perfectly safe with me, Maria.”

“You can stay on the other side of the room, you’re not nearly as charming as your brother. You know, I almost suspected snake-oil-man here, but Rogers, I never would have guessed you were this sly.”

“I have no idea who you’re talking about, Deputy,” Steve answers flatly. “No idea who Rogers is – I’m just the Head Spook. Gamora?”

“Gamora here.” Her accent is hard to place, hints here and there of several different places. “Currently holding down the prison levels. Thanks for disabling the elevator – that could’ve caused a lot more problems for me.”

“Nebula,” a slightly harsher voice says. “On the other side from my sister. I’ve rigged several places on the stairs to blow up if the prisoners in the Cube manage to get out.”

“Are you both safe?” Steve asks quietly, carefully locking the desk before glancing around him for a moment.

“None of us are safe,” Nebula says cynically. “But I think that should hold them in.”

“Jewel?”

“Jewel,” a New York woman says, sounding almost bored. “Third floor cafeteria. Pretty deserted over here. A few people have run by, but I think they were heading for the main entrance.”

“Twins?” The door swings open and Steve starts digging around in a desk, grabbing another silver case and heading toward the broken elevator.

“Yes, yes, we are here. Wiccan-,” a female breathes in a strong Eastern European accent.

“-and Quicksilver,” a male with the same accent adds. “Twelfth floor, we’re hiding in a janitor’s closet.”

“There are voices outside but I can’t tell if they’re our side or not,” Wiccan whispers.

Steve finds the door to the emergency staircase and silently turns the knob, opening it without a sound, slipping down the steps like the spook he claimed to be. “Okay – all units, you are to converge to Fury on the executive levels. Clear your level and work your way up. Use the stairs, or hack into an elevator’s panel. Help out where you can, provide medical attention or backup where you can, but remember: you are not agents. Stay out of direct combat and avoid being seen. We are not designed to be fighters, we are emergency units only.”

He stops abruptly as Ms. Marvel whispers “He shot her. Jesus Christ, he shot her.”

Steve quickly barks “Hera-”

“Don’t bother,” Ms. Marvel says, breathing heavily. “She’s already dead. Boss, Agent Ward just shot Agent Hand and her entire team, and he’s heading upstairs in your general direction.”

Calm, Steve says “I’ll handle it.”

“Hawkeye, thirty-first floor, requesting medical ASAP.” They can all here that she’s panting, running. “Triplett and Coulson are down, and Garrett just dragged Johnson away! I think he’s trying to take her to the comms center. Jesus, he’s practically dislocating her shoulder…Agent May currently in pursuit.”

May inhales sharply. This is where Trip had died and Coulson lost half of his right arm – she knew he survived because he’d managed to get help so quickly but none of them had known it was because the Scourge had witnessed it happening.

“Let him try getting in here,” Hill says savagely. “Get out of my way, snake-man. I have unfinished business with that dumb prick.”

“You aren’t going to hear any arguments from me,” Fenrir murmurs, keys clicking in the background. “He probably needs her to hack the weapons systems for him. I have no intention of letting him do so.”

“Hawkeye, wait for Hera to arrive and then pursue,” Steve orders. “Fenrir, do not engage with Garrett, he’s clever enough to guess who you are. Let Hill take point.”

He seems about to say something else when Jewel hisses “ _Holy. Shit_.” There’s the sound of gagging, the woman on the other side dry heaving. “Cap, Cap – you need to run –”

-and then everyone else gasps along with Steve as he whispers “Oh, shit.”

“Boss?” Ms Marvel says uneasily. “Boss, where are you? I’m coming your way.”

“Don’t-don’t come over here, Carol.” His speech is hushed, strained. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s already broken one of his own rules.

“Steve, I just watched him crack open someone’s head like an egg and rip a man’s entire arm off,” Jewel agrees in low tones. “You really need to get out of there.”

Steve replies with the same muted tone. “And where would I go, Jessica? I’d never outrun _him_.”

The Winter Soldier was standing at the bottom of the stairs, peering up at him. It was obvious that he hadn’t been in Simmons’ direct care for a while either, because he was absolutely _filthy_ , hair tangled and matted with old blood and dirt, shirtless and coated in a layer of blood – _not_ his own – the ugly twisted place where the sad excuse for a prosthetic they gave him meets the ruin of his left shoulder is on full display. Blood still drips from his fingertips on both hands, and for some reason, he’s soaking wet.

Bucky is going numb, a low roar howling through his ears. He feels sick to his stomach. That – that was how he and Steve actually met? Natasha squeezes his hand hard and Clint mutters “Breathe, pal.”

They’re both shaking, tremors running through them, clinging to him and to each other. He squeezes them tight, head hung down, trying to stay with them in the moment.

It’s his face, but it’s not. It’s not. It’s. It’s…

Steve is a lunatic, a complete madman, and that is the only possible explanation for the reason he begins moving closer, slowly descending the steps one at a time. Moving closer and closer to the monster that waits at the bottom as he holsters his weapon. With a slowness born of anxiety, he lifts his hand to his face, pulling the mask down. “Agent Barnes? Can you hear me?”

Bucky cringes as the Soldier tilts his head, brow furrowing with his inability to comprehend. Steve exhales. “Huh, let’s try something else then. _Tu es blesse, grand homme. Me comprenez-vous?”_

_You’re wounded, big man. Do you understand me?_

None of them were previously aware that Steve spoke any French, let alone being fluent in the language.

 _“En attente de la prochaine commande,”_ the Soldier replies in his scratchy sandpaper voice. His eyes take in Steve’s face, something like interest taking hold in that empty gaze.

Bobbi whips out her phone and begins frantically trying to translate this conversation for the benefit of Mack, Hunter, and Daisy, who don’t understand any French at all, and Fitz, Clint, and Coulson, whose French is either barely passable or only rudimentary.

Then he cocks his head and asks “ _Puis-je vous servir, etoile?”_

_Waiting for next orders. May I serve you, star?_

Against her will, Natasha snorts out a giggle. Bucky feels a smile tug his own lips. Apparently, Zima had _moves_ , and he thought Steve was _tres mignon_.

“Oh my.” Stunned, Steve glances around the stairwell. “ _Est-ce que tu me parles, mon cheri?”_

_Are you talking to me, darling?_

“Did he just seriously flirt with the Winter Soldier?” Daisy mutters.

 _“Oui, je te parle. Est-ce que je peux faire quelque chose pour vous, etoile?”_ Chin lowering as Steve moves closer, until they’re nearly of a height, with Steve just a little taller standing on the stairs that way.

_Yes, I am talking to you. Can I do something for you, star?_

“Yes. And I think this is the Winter Soldier’s version of flirting back,” Fitz breathes.

And Steve ever-so-gently reaches up and wipes the trails from blood coming from the matted thatch of hair, the curl of his lips into a smile evident in his tone and the way the Soldier’s eyes widen, and purrs _“On va voir.”_

 _Oh, he’s a goner,_ Clint and Natasha think at the same time.

 _So this is why Zima had such a hard time listening to me,_ Simmons realizes. _He was likely already smitten with Steve before Bucky ever even met him._

_“Oui, etoile.”_

Because, as has now been established, Steve is _actually insane_ , he gently takes hold of Zima’s uninjured hand and says _“Sit down and let me look at you. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”_

Zima is obedient, but Bucky is fascinated to realize that rather than the cowed stupidity that normally characterizes his behavior, around Steve he seems to operate in a constant state of awe. The silver case Steve brought with him turns out to be a field medic’s kit. With the precision and speed of someone whose had a lot of practice, Steve slips on a pair of nitrile gloves and uses sterile wipes to clean off Zima’s face. “This is Jewel. I don’t see you, Cap. Are you doing alright?”

“We’re good here,” Steve says warmly, gently tilting Zima’s chin the other way. His pale eyes follow his movements at all times, eager for the sight of Steve.

Occasional dialogue buzzes in and out from the other team members, just the rest of the Scourge clearing their floors, reporting the number of dead and sometimes requesting Hera for medical services for anyone lucky enough to still be alive.

Wearing a camera at all times means that they all see when Steve’s head turns to look at the horror that’s become Bucky’s left arm. _“They haven’t been taking very good care of you, have they?”_ Steve murmurs matter-of-factly. _“Broke you into pieces and put you back together rather poorly.”_

 _“Current function: 80% optimal,”_ the Soldier answers promptly.

Steve’s squints at him, teases him _“Did you just make a joke? Are you always this charming with strangers, mon cheri, or am I a special case?”_

Speaking to Zima,  _flirting_ with him, as if he were a perfectly normal person and not a brain damaged shell of a human being. Bucky aches, aches for this boy, and for himself. Aches to touch him again, if only to prove to himself that he’s real.

And then Zima does something none of them have ever seen him do. He ducks his head and gives a tiny, microscopic smile, eyes lowered. Submissive, shy, _pleased_. Steve’s laugh is a low, purring chuckle that brings a blush to the current Bucky’s lowered face. _“You’re adorable! Well, look at you there. Look at that smile,”_ he says, clicking his tongue with glad surprise, rubbing a thumb over that gaunt jaw. _“You’re not a fighter at all, are you? You’re more of a lover, I think. What a shitty thing to do, to turn such a sweetheart into their ‘perfect soldier’.”_

He runs a gloved hand gently over the tangled mass of Zima’s hair, a soft touch given for no other reason than simple kindness.

 _I am so gone,_ Bucky thinks despairingly.

Steve the madman leads the Winter Soldier by the hand through the back corridor. _“You’re going to attract too much attention for me, mon cheri, and there are probably people around who are worried sick about you._ Hill, Agent Barnes was with Delta, wasn’t he? That’s uh…Buh…Barton, Romanov?”

The British man replies “Hill is…indisposed at the moment. Let me check the records holdings. Hm, yeah. Delta, team leader: James Barnes. Current members: Clinton Barton. Natalia Romanova.”

“Can you tell if they’re in the building?”

“They’re by me,” Daredevil answers. “I’ve moved up to the twenty-eighth floor. They’d be a scary redhead and a kind of doofy blond, right? I can hear them on the other end of the floor. I think they’ve figured out how to bypass the broken elevators. Seriously the redhead is fucking terrifying, she looks like she could bring back the dead just to make them wash dishes.”

“She’s had a hard few months,” Steve grunts, tugging Zima’s arm to make him slow down and stop, then cups his hands gently around both cheeks, bringing those empty eyes to look right into his. _“Ecoutez-moi, amoureux. You’re going to go straight up to the twenty eighth floor and let your friends help you. Got that, handsome? Let. Them. Help. You. Understand me?”_

Zima nods, but looks unhappy in a way that means he has some comprehension that he’s being sent away.

Intellectually, Bucky has always known that he was large man compared with Steve, but it’s a much different experience to see this in Steve’s eyes, see how large his own chest is in contrast with his small, graceful hands. To witness that fearless way Steve just steps into his space.

Steve kisses Zima on the brow, just a quick blessing peck, and backs away, toward the main atrium. _“Don’t go looking for me. You’ll help me if you help yourself. Good luck, sweetheart. Now go find your family.”_

\- - -

“Where’s Ward now?” Steve asks quietly, sliding the mask back over the lower half of his face and slipping through the shadows cast by the weak light of the late winter sunset.

“Saw him briefly come up from the parking garage,” Jewel replies in a whisper. “I’m about to have some trouble over here, Cap. Rumlow was your target, wasn’t he? I saw him wandering around the main staff levels. Seems to be looking for something. Or someone.”

“Do not engage,” Steve snarls, low and commanding. “I’m fucking serious, Jessica. This isn’t Fisk or Kilgrave. He’s a military-trained sadist and he’s seen you before – there’s nothing he’d like more than to think he’s hurting me by hurting you, and in this case, he’d be right.”

“Nazi are bastards, how shocking!” she says, dripping with sarcasm.

“Most Spooks wouldn’t give a damn,” Fenrir trills, as though reciting a quote from someone else.

Grimly, Steve says, “I give a damn.”

“Then what do you suggest I do?” Jewel asks, aggravated.

“Hide, Jewel,” he hisses. “Hide as though your life depends on it.”

“Because it will?”

“If he finds you, it definitely will.” As Steve approaches the glass-encased atrium, there comes a strange sound, like splashing, and he slowly and quietly releases the safety trigger on the silenced pistol before turning around the corner.

Simmons gasps and Fitz finds himself being squeezed tightly by Daisy.

Ward is there, snarling viciously as he holds Fitz face-down in the fountain centerpiece of the grand atrium entrance. Simmons is collapsed against another part of the marble fountain, choking out water as she stirs weakly, quickly fading from consciousness. “Oh, _no_ ,” Steve whispers, horrified and then savage with rage. “No, you don’t.”

Ward’s anger makes him blind and careless. Daisy takes vicious satisfaction in knowing that he’d be quite furious if he’d known that he was killed by a small chronically ill asthmatic man. And to Steve’s credit, it really is some very good shooting. They are able to watch him lift the gun in one smooth fast motion, aim and fire, and fire twice more.

One shot hits Ward’s right shoulder, one chips off a section of marble from the bubbling fountain, and one catches Grant Ward right in the back of the head. The larger man goes down before he can finish turning around. Steve runs, despite the dangerous edge of a wheeze in his lungs, ignoring Ward to grab Fitz up under the armpits and heave him out of the water. “Head Spook, ground floor atrium, Fitz and Simmons are both unconscious. Possible drowning, need medical ASAP.”

“Coming your way,” Pepper says immediately.

As they are watching Steve during CPR on Fitz (“Agent Fitz isn’t breathing, Hera”), the comms shriek with life. “They killed him! They shot him! PIETRO!!!”

“Wiccan, stay calm,” Ms. Marvel says, firm and kind. “What’s your location?”

Wiccan is sobbing, sounding young and heartbroken. “Wiccan, the armory. Qu-Quicksilver is down. Two Strike Teams caught us and pinned us down and they’ve killed Pietro!!”

Gently, Ms. Marvel replies “I’m coming to you. Stay where you are and just give me updates on your status.”

“Al-alright.” They can here her weeping quietly over the death of her brother, sniffing in her hiding place at the armory. “Cap?”

“I’m still here,” Steve gasps, wheezing harshly as he gives up his breath to Fitz. “I’m here, _cearc beag_.”

“What did he call her?” Daisy mouths, and Fitz nudges her.

“Little chick – it’s Gaelic.”

They can hear Ms. Marvel trying to keep her calm as Steve continues his frantic efforts to get Fitz breathing again, the huff of air as he counts under his breath before each round of chest compressions. “Hurry, Hera,” he gasps, clearly running out of breath. “No air.”

“Cap, you utter madman, stop that,” Fenrir barks, actually sounding alarmed now.

“You can’t help them if you pass out,” Daredevil agrees.

The camera moves as Steve shakes his head, but he doesn’t answer verbally, conserving his air for the job he is doing.

Fitz finally gags, retching and coughing water out from his lungs, and Steve rolls him onto his side, panting loudly, and takes two hits from his inhaler, camera close enough to see how badly his hands shake. Assured that Fitz can breathe and is still relatively unharmed, he gets up and stumbles over to Simmons, taking off his gloves and replacing the mask as he checks her pulse. Nods to himself, apparently satisfied with her condition. Simmons groans weakly and blinks her eyes open, squinting in confusion at the sight of the skull that greets her. “Fitz…?” she moans, lurching away from Steve. “Wha-?”

She jerks and tries to fling herself away from the cloth Steve holds to her nose and mouth, but gasps in the terror, inhaling a huge lungful of what was apparently chloroform in the process. Simmons makes a last grab for his arm as she loses consciousness again and Steve shushes her gently as she collapses against him. He drags her so that she can lay next to Fitz before straightening up with a groan to greet Pepper.

And it is definitely Pepper.

Unlike Steve’s cloth skull mask, hers is some kind of hard resin fitted to her face, with the tawny muzzle of a lioness. There’s no absolutely no mistaking the color of that ponytail, though. Following her is a weepy brunette with hazel eyes and a mask of dark reddish stitched leather that almost resembles a muzzle.

She jerks the thing off her face, revealing a young woman not even out of her twenties who rushes to Steve, throwing her arms around him as she begins sobbing her heart out into his shoulder, despite being two inches taller than he is. This must be the young Wiccan who lost her brother, Quicksilver.

“Oh, _cearc beag,_ ” he murmurs, soothing her with long strokes against her back. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but it’ll be alright. It might take a while, but you’re gonna be okay.”

“He was all I had left!” Wiccan sobs.

“Not all,” Pepper’s voice says warmly as she steps to examine Fitz and Simmons. “Who’s the dead asshole?”

“An asshole,” Steve answers shortly, going back to calming down Wiccan.

“Head Spook, this Ms. Marvel. I’m in the aircraft complex and your target is here.”

Steve apparently makes a telling face, because the teary Wiccan smiles at him and says “Go, Captain Spook. Make us very proud!”

He gives her a parting kiss on the cheek and says “In pursuit. Talk to me, Ms. Marvel.”

“You’re going to want to go to the Northwest part of the quinjet hangar and hurry it up, Steve. Whatever he was looking for, he gave up on. I think he was trying to find the Winter Soldier. Fenrir seems to think Rumlow was the agent who trapped Barnes and handed him to HYDRA to begin with.”

“He’s probably right,” Steve agrees angrily. “And that’s why I can’t let him get away! I had the chance to get his dirty laundry and I threw it away. None of this would’ve happened if I’d just stuck to Rumlow the way I was supposed to.”

“Cap, you said yourself that he was just days away from escalating further,” Jewel says quietly.

“I had the opportunity!” Steve barks back, clearly furious as he navigates the back corridors into the freight elevator. “I had him where I wanted, where he would never suspect have suspected and I choked!”

Harshly, Jewel says “You are not really telling me that you wish you’d allowed yourself to be raped by that monster.”

“It would’ve been easy – he liked fear.” Steve, unbelievably, still sounds angry with himself – as though preventing himself from being sexually assaulted was a weakness of some sort. Idiot.

“Pause,” Bucky manages to choke out, before he runs from the room, throwing up violently in the bathroom wastebasket. Heaving his guts out at the thought of Steve, his little darling, frail and big-hearted, in the hands of his main torturer. Letting himself be taken for the sake of duty. Steve with the man who used whips made of chain and cattle prods on Bucky, and put a leash around Zima’s neck to drag him about like a simple-minded beast.

The idea of that man touching him makes Zima, held deep down in him, stir to life with a powerful wave of rage. FIND. HUNT. KILL. Hell, if Rumlow were actually still alive, he may even consider letting him do just that. But there would be no benefit to that now, and Zima would probably end up running out into the night to find Steve and grab him. FIND. STAR. PROTECT.

_Yeah, man, I kinda know how ya feel._

He’s never been grateful for what happened to him, grateful for Zima, and quitting SHIELD, and therapy, and medications twice a day. But he is grateful now. If this is the price required to pay for sparing Steve that terror and pain, he was glad to pay it.

The sound of the water running pulls him from these horrible thoughts. May dips a washcloth into cool water and hands it to him before giving him a glass to drink. They do not speak to each other – May doesn’t do feelings, but she is a steady reliable presence Bucky’s mind grips on to. Her cool patience lets him breathe until he can get his feet under him again.

Clint glances at him, checking his state, before letting the video play again.

“It would’ve been easy – he liked fear.”

“We are required to gain intel with whatever means we deem necessary,” Fenrir interjects harshly. “But we are still civilians, Captain, and it does us no good to put ourselves at personal risk. We do more good alive, and without allowing ourselves to be incapacitated on a gamble.”

“He wouldn’t have killed-” There’s the sound of a clanking metal, and then a section of the walls around Steve crumble. The screen flares with light and it takes them all a moment to realize that the camera has died.

 

“Caught in an explosion,” Natasha observes.

“Obviously survived,” Coulson points out. “But, yeah, seems-James?!"

"Go get 'em, Uncle Buck!" Daisy hollers gleefully at his rapidly retreating back.

"James?" Natasha calls, alarmed.

"I have to, Natalia." He glances back at her, eyes desperate and full of grief. "I know you're angry, but..."

She runs up to him, catches his face in her tiny hands. He brings his forehead to rest on hers. "Do you love him, James?"

He chokes with tears, his heart still clamoring with the horror of Steve, in Rumlow's bed, being... "I do, Natalia. I never even...I do."

"Then you're going to find him, and tell him so," she says firmly.

"Yes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you missed the clues, the code names were:  
> Head Spook/Captain/Cap - Steve  
> Ms Marvel - Carol Danvers  
> Ghost Rescue: Vision - Dr Helen Cho  
> Ghost Rescue: Hera - Pepper Potts  
> Hawkeye - Kate Bishop  
> Daredevil - Matt Murdock  
> Fenrir - Loki Laufeyson  
> Gamora & Nebula - didn't change their names, because in this universe I would imagine they probably have more normal sounding full names  
> Jewel - Jessica Jones  
> Quicksilver - Pietro Maximoff  
> Wiccan - Wanda Maximoff (I know that 'Wiccan' technically refers to her son, but 'Scarlet Witch' doesn't really roll off the tongue)  
> Edited 9/4/2018  
> What the fuck, man.


	11. and be thy love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter *silent screaming*.
> 
> Also, meet Steven G. Rogers: reigning and undisputed King of Power Bottoms. (fight me! if skinny Steve is not a power bottom, then frankly there are no power bottoms)

Bucky’s nerves were on him the whole train ride into Red Hook, Zima riding him ruthlessly, driving him to find **the Star, my Star, my lustrous beautiful Star**. _Will you calm down, for fuck’s sake? You’re giving me a goddamn headache. I’m TRYING, all right! Leave a man to be freaked out in peace!_

He is standing at Steve’s doorway when all the bravado he left with completely escapes him. Steve’s letter certainly implied that he _cared_ about Bucky, about all of them really, but that wasn’t the same as loving him, or wanting him.

_You can do this, you can be brave. Have some guts, Barnes._

He lifted his hand to knock when there’s a crash from inside the apartment, and then Steve bellows “GET OFF!”

It’s…it’s an overreaction even by Bucky’s standards, but to be fair to Bucky, he was already on edge from watching the video and thinking about Steve with Rumlow and…well…

He _might’ve_ broken the door down.

To also be fair to Steve, he doesn’t actually _shoot_ Bucky, but it’s kind of a near thing.

Steve’s experience with Pierce also left _him_ a little jumpy and he’s decided that firearms are no longer a terrible thing to have when you’re a retired spy-for-the-spies and you could possibly be kidnapped while going around to the corner store.

Bucky will say one thing for the event: the view is _excellent_. 

Like…wet, dripping, naked Steve excellent. He might’ve drooled, he’s not sure.

Wet, dripping, naked Steve with his pretty peaked nipples and heat-flushed skin, who holds a gun steady when he points it at Bucky’s head. Behind him, the bathtub in the studio is sloshing water all over the tile, unhappy at being disturbed when Steve had leaped out as the door exploded inwards.

Bucky gulps, hands raised in the air, and stutters “So-sorry. I-I heard you yelling, and I thought…”

Steve’s breathing hard, bruised ribs rising and falling, and both hands ache to caress, to touch each broken blood vessel with a gentle hand. They look awful – purple, blue, and sickly yellow. Zima is restless, anxious, furious. Pressing Bucky to touch him, hold him, make sure that he’s okay, but while Steve is holding a gun he has the feeling that’s not a terribly good idea.

Steve quickly lows the weapon and snatches a towel to cover himself – _oh, disappointment_ – but it only covers his lower half. Very nice. “Shit! I’m…” He clicks the safety back on and puts the gun down on a side table. “I’m sorry. I’m just twitchy.” Steve realizes that Bucky is still staring at his chest (specifically, he’s having very vivid fantasies about the water sliding down his collarbones and past his belly button) and he blushes to the tips of his ears. “Um…Bucky?”

“Fu-fuck!” Bucky flushes right along with him, realizes he’s still staring and stuttering like a total creep, and whirls around to face the wall, clapping a hand over his eyes. He hopes that it’s not too obvious that he’s sporting half a boner right now. “I’m sorry, f-fuck, I-I didn’t mean to-to, I just. I th-thought someone was hurting you.”

He’s turned on despite himself, and so mortified he feels almost sick with it. Bucky startles as a damp hand touches him on the elbow. “Bucky…? Are you okay?”

“I-I just wanted to-to-”

He startles again when at his feet, a fluffy red cat looks up at him and goes “Mrawr?”

Behind the cat is a tin box and a messy pile of random brushes, pencils, and pens on the floor. Sheepishly, Steve says “It was Chewie. I was yelling at him to get off my damn counters.”

A cat. He freaked out over a fucking _cat_.

Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever been more humiliated in his entire life.

A second cat approaches him hesitantly, a pretty calico with green eyes, and it takes a few moments for his eyes to comprehend what he’s seeing before Bucky realizes that her tail missing, and most of her back half is cybernetic. She makes a low, inquiring sound with a soft chirrup. “Jenny, don’t bother Bucky.”

“She’s got-she’s a…” He has to take a moment before he’s calm enough to turn and look Steve in the eye. “She’s like me.”

“Yeah,” he says softly, big blue eyes taking in Bucky’s face with interest. _Eagerness_? Is that wishful thinking on his part? “Tony started doing research by rescuing animals from kill shelters who were missing limbs or eyes. Most of them live in the tower right now, but he’s starting to let friends adopt some of them out. So now I’ve got Jenny here and Morgan, who’s probably cowering under the bed.”

Steve watches as Bucky, wide-eyed with hopeful wonder, crouches down and pets Jenny’s patchwork coat. She purrs and chirps in excitement at the nice man who stops to pet her. Bucky chirps and coos back to her, murmuring sweetly in Romanian, visibly growing less anxious as he strokes her back. Softly, hesitantly, Steve says “You’re adorable.”

“You keep saying that,” Bucky says, fixing his gaze on Jenny the cat. “Like you think it’s actually true.”

“You keep calling me a star like you really believe it’s true. Fair is fair as far as I’m concerned,” Steve replies.

Quietly, Bucky swallows and says “In a minute, I’m gonna turn around and kiss you because.” He swallows and plunges in. Maybe he can say this is he isn’t looking directly at Steve. “Because those bruises make me want to hit something but there isn’t anything I can hit for you here and-and I love you, _comoara._ I love you, Steve.”

Steve stares in shock at his trembling fingers, which scritch under Jenny’s chin. “You-you…you love…” he stammers dumbly, then shakes his head in self-aggravation and threads his fingers through the thick strands of dark hair, gently tugging Bucky around to face him. “Buck…”

Bucky is terrified but meets his gaze. Steve brings their mouths together, so soft and so sweet, Bucky growls and uses an arm around the waist to pull him closer. Steve gasps as the towel drops, shivering at the sound and the chill of the room slapping into his wet skin. “I do… I do, too, Buck…”

“You’re cold,” Bucky murmurs, hushed and tender, nosing at his jaw, his neck. Steve can probably feel how his heart is racing, but this is his little darling, his _dragule,_ back in his arms. Whose naked and shivering and loves _him_ of all people. As Steve winds those pale arms around his shoulders to hold him tight with his slight strength, what the fuck does he care if _zvezdochka_ can throw a knife better than he can and holds a pistol perfectly steady?

Steve wrinkles his nose, shifting just out of his reach slightly. “And I probably smell like old rags and turpentine,” he says, jerking his head at the tub behind him. “I never actually got to the cleaning part of the bath.”

So, Bucky picks him, bruised and naked and yelping with surprise, and lowers him back into the water. “Can I…can I help you?” he asks shyly, backing away from the bathing area to give Steve some space. “Or I can just…go wait…?”

“Get over here,” Steve says fondly, hooking one arm over the rim to beckon him forward.

Non-sexual bathing was kind of A Thing for Team Delta. They did it for practical reasons out in the field quite often – because there was not enough water for all of them to go around anyway, or the area was too insecure to be wandering off alone, or occasionally because one (or all) of them was injured and couldn’t wash without some of assistance.  After returning to civilian life for good, it became more of a ritual based on familiarity and closeness. Usually done after a bad day in therapy for him or an increase in anxiety levels for Clint and Natasha.

 _This_ was not _that._

Steve leans forward to drain the water, now lukewarm, revealing a perfect view of his back. The pronounced and slightly bent line of his vertebrae, the mottled purple flesh near his kidneys – punched or kicked there, then – the dimples on either side of his spine just above his ass which lure his gaze down, down, down to the milky curve of each buttock and his narrow hips.

All of it, revealed to him inch by inch as the water drains away. “Are you helping or watching?” Steve asks, husky and amused as he turns the taps back to refill on hot. “I don’t object to watching but the water will get cold again.” 

And Bucky kneels down behind him, tracing a gentle line along that beautiful back. “Your skin is silk,” he murmurs, lips to Steve’s ear, fingertips slowly tracing both dimples. “Your mouth is velvet. Your eyes are jewels. Your hair is gold. Your voice is silver.” Steve’s eyes slide shut and Bucky laughs quietly, kissing his shoulder. “Your spine is steel.”

“Where is that from?” Steve asks sleepily as Bucky’s arms encircle him.

“Ain’t from anywhere,” he whispers, scooting closer to the tub and gathering Steve against his chest. “Just what my brain thinks every time I see you undressed.”

“’m getting your clothes wet,” Steve mumbles. “Not **every** time, really?”

“Really. Every time.” He’s careless with his shirt, throws it off into a corner somewhere. Feeling Steve’s wet skin against his bare chest is a better alternative anyway. He plucks the washcloth floating around in the water. “If you think that’s bad, you should hear the things Zima thinks about you.”

Steve’s skin prickles watching him pour the soap and work a lather into the cloth. Bucky starts on his neck and shoulders, saying “If you’re going to squirm away every time I kiss you, I’d better start here.”

“I can’t possibly smell pleasant,” he mutters.

Bucky cups water in his hands, rinses Steve off slowly and methodically. The soap is scented with almonds and that’s all he can smell, and he tells Steve so.

This close, he can tell when Steve start breathing harder as his hands go from his shoulders down to his chest and belly. Gently, the prosthetic hand begins drawing circles around his pecs. “I won’t touch unless you say I can,” he says, curling the other hand protectively around Steve’s opposite hip. “But I’m guessin’ you really like it?”

Steve nods, biting his lip, whispers “You can. Touch me.”

“What did – what happened?” Bucky turns his head to kiss Steve’s hairline. “Whatever he did, I don’t want to do that.”

“He-he’d pull on them. As hard as he could.” Steve moans loudly when the metal thumb flicks gently over a tight nub. The metal is cold, and Bucky keeps the touch so soft and quick that it flashes through his whole body like flickers of lightning. The sensation travels from his chest straight to his cock, and Bucky won’t stop, keeping him distracted with pleasure so that his brain can’t quite latch onto the memory of pain. “Bite-bite me u-until I thought I was going to-to bl-bleed – oh _, Bucky, oh, oh yes_!”

Bucky moans along with him as Steve’s whole body jerks, both hands pinching and kneading with fast, light touches. He can be angry about this later – right now, he can feel Steve’s face tucked into his neck, gasp-gasp-gasping, long eyelashes brushing his skin. “Can I bring you off like this, sweetheart?” His teeth scrape hungrily over Steve’s shoulder, tasting like heat and honey. “Just flick your pretty tits until you make a mess for me?”

He flicks a tiny bit harder and scrapes the nails of the flesh and blood hand over the flat little mound.

“With-your-mouth-your-mouth- _your-mouth_ , ohmygod!” Steve sobs, arching his back until he’s practically levitating out of the water.

Bucky eases off so that Steve can stop gasping, nuzzling his hair and holding him close, murmuring “Oh yes, I’ll have to remember that for later. For now…”

He washes Steve’s belly and strokes the silky soft skin as he rinses him off, taking in the hard cock between his thighs. Those he washes too, before tossing the cloth back into the warm water so that he can feel those slender taunt muscles. “I’d forgotten,” Steve pants, boneless against him. “How good it can feel.”

“Ready to dry off?” Bucky nibbles at the tips of his ears, Steve shuddering just like he remembered. “Wanna show you properly.”

He’s pinned, arrested by those beautiful hazy eyes as Steve tilts his head back to gaze up at him. “You show me properly all the time, Buck. With everything you do. I feel it.”

Bucky’s chest aches and feels tight. “Don’t I just have the sweetest boy in Brooklyn?” he whispers, kissing his ear, cheek, mouth. Lower, whispers “My clever, cunning little ghost.”

“Make love to me,” Steve says, lips brushing Bucky’s with every word. “Stay the night, _mishka_ , and let me make love to you.”

And now finally, Steve can understand Bucky when he replies. He wraps Steve the fluffy towel, rubbing him dry as gently as possible. “I’ll give you whatever you want, baby. Whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want it.”

“Just you, Bucky. I just want you.”

“Your landlord is going to murder you,” he points out. “I’ve already broken the door and it’s almost midnight, Steve. The neighbors’ll complain about the noise.”

“He would, and they would, but luckily, _I’m_ the landlord. I own this building, Buck. The downstairs is a set of professional offices – so, empty right now, and the other studios are used as crash-pads and restocking points for the Scourge. So, also empty right now.” Steve watches him voraciously as he unbuckles his belt. Can’t quite resist reaching out to slide his nimble fingers beneath the waistband and giving Bucky’s ass a good firm squeeze, tugging him just a little closer to feel that bare skin against his again.

Bucky breathes in sharply as Steve kisses his chest, looking at him through long eyelashes. “Do you remember that morning in your bed?” he asks, apparently unaware that he’s just placed a spell on the other man. “I want it just like that, with you inside me.”

Shakily, Bucky kisses him, slow and hot, the image of Steve gasping and crying out behind his eyelids. He’s avoided thinking of it in the past week, the memory too painful and full of softness for the way his heart had broken, but now it comes rushing back to him. Bucky finds himself walking Steve back to the bed, attached to him at the mouth and hands roaming all over. “You’re still hurt, baby.”

“You’ll be gentle.” Steve is guileless in his certainty and it hits Bucky again that he is desperately, helplessly in love with him.

He is bewitched, happily enchanted by a tiny sorcerer who only needs to bat those eyes and bite his lips for Bucky to be bespelled. Snap his goddamn fingers and Bucky will be there, ready and always so, so willing.

“I didn’t get to touch you before. Please, Stevie,” he begs, picking him up and laying him gently on the bed.

Steve, naked on top of the covers, pulls Bucky on top of him, both to fight the chill of his apartment and because any space that separates them is too much. He kisses Buck slowly, bringing their joined hands to his cock and gasping into his mouth as Bucky takes him in hand.

There’s admittedly a moment of heart-pounding fear, to have Bucky’s body looming over him, the sheer mass and size of him making Steve’s lizard brain briefly scramble with residual terror from the past week lingering in his mind. Then his hand closes around Steve’s most sensitive of parts and Bucky ducks his head, first biting gently at his collar and then lower, lower. Steve thrashes and cries out, hips coming off the bed as his mouth closes around his right nipple. “Ah-ah-ah!”

Bucky lifts his eyes to look at him, “ _ah-ah-ah”_ he repeats in a hoarse growl and Steve remembers the way Brock mocked him for this, pulled on his chest and called him a little girl. Ashamed, embarrassed of what he wanted. How good it felt.

He forces himself to look forward, to stare straight into Bucky’s face. In front of him, Bucky’s brilliant blue eyes are hungry and eager rather than mocking.

He rumbles a pleased noise, rubbing his coarse cheek over the tight, aching flesh as though he could mark him, getting soft whimpers out of Steve. “I love that sound,” he confesses in a low purr, laving his tongue over Steve’s chest in rough wet strokes. Steve keens again, arching up to offer himself. “That’s it, baby, you just lay there and tell me when I’m doin’ it right.”

“It’s right, god, it’s right,” Steve gasps, whimpering higher and higher. “You do it so right, Buck!”

Prepping him takes forever and no time at all. On the one hand, Bucky’s mouth suckling eagerly at his nipples, firm and wet, makes him lose all sense, but on the other, he spends the whole time aching with want and emptiness, hungry for just that little bit more. For Bucky inside him.

Bucky buries his face in Steve’s neck as he slides past that first resistance, as slowly as he can. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’ll never last,” he whispers, bringing his hands behind Steve to support his back. The condom isn’t helping his control at all. “Oh, _god_ , Stevie…”

Steve cradles Bucky’s head against him, moaning steadily at each deliberate thrust, fingers tangled through his hair. He can feel the huffs of humid air as Bucky breathes raggedly against his skin. “Don’t last,” he sighs into his hair, arms holding tight. “This is what I wanted, _dragul meu_.”

“Want you to…first…”

“My good man,” Steve murmurs, kissing his neck. Whispered like a secret: “Come in me, Buck.”

It was a bit of a gamble – so far, he’d never seen Bucky come unless Steve gave the direct permission to. He assumed that this would work in reverse and being directed to finish would make Bucky get there as quickly as he was able.

Bucky is as helpless to this order as he is to any of Steve’s commands, groaning loudly as he presses his hips tight to Steve’s ass. He lets the last strings of self-control fall away, shakes and pours himself into the latex.

“Yes, oh! Just like that, just like that,” Steve sighs, content and oddly satisfied, hands rubbing over Bucky’s back. “Mm, yes! Buck, Buck, I can still feel you…”

He moans, kissing all over Steve’s neck and face as he tosses the used condom into the trash beside the bed. “I didn’t get you to-?”

“No,” Steve breathes, still throbbing against his own stomach. “I didn’t want to be too distracted to feel you coming.”

“Is that your favorite part?” he asks, smearing his mouth over Steve’s collars and working his way lower, over his nipples and down his soft flat belly.

“Yes!” Steve cries, groaning as the heat of Bucky’s mouth closes over his cock. “Yes, _mishka_ , that’s so good! I want to-” He chokes, moaning when Bucky sucks gently at his balls. “I can’t wait to-to feel it with-without the condom.”

Bucky groans back, mouth full, and eagerly works over Steve’s cock. If that’s what he wants, they need to get tested, and _quickly_.

Steve lasts long enough for Bucky to get hard all over again, until he’s grinding against the mattress and moaning around Steve’s cock. The slender man begs with Bucky, voice cracking, thighs trembling around his ears: “Fuck me, fuck me again, _please, mishka_ , more!”

“Still have to wear the condom,” he warns, licking and gently scraping his teeth over the veins. “You’re gonna be sore.”

“Go slow then,” he whines. “Please Buck, I want it again.”

He gathers Steve into his lap, presses him into the wall, and fucks into him with deep slow strokes, gripping his dick in one hand with the metal arm wrapped around his ass. Steve bites and scratches his way through his own orgasm, with hushed throaty cries and low groans, until he’s left clinging to Bucky, weak as a kitten and covered in his own release.

Dreamy and fucked out he whispers to Bucky again. Lazy and sweet with his own release, Steve talks him all the way through the next one, rolling his hips in smooth circles as he coos with pleasure still humming through his veins, breathing “Do it again, Buck, c’mon. I want it in me. As deep as you can.”

“Fuck!” Bucky cries, teeth gritted, squeezing his eyes shut with Steve’s hips in his grip, pushing him down harder on his cock. “Stevie, Stevie, oh, _OH_!”

“Yes, oh yes,” he sighs, the pulse of Bucky’s prick throbbing inside him. Steve clenches his muscles, milking him to draw out the experience for both of them and smiling when Bucky’s eyes roll back. “Mm…god, Buck, that feels so good.”

Bucky doesn’t bother moving, just mouths lazily at Steve’s neck and shoulder. “I may be the one with the heart condition.”

“Good?” Steve uses the discarded towel clean himself off with before tossing it across the room.

“Good? Jesus, Steve.” He takes a shaky breath. “You just – I’m not sure I’ve ever had sex that great.”

Steve smiles with his eyes, touching their foreheads together. “I’m not certain I knew what great sex was before now.” Rubs their lips together, too foggy and uncoordinated to kiss properly. “Lay down with me?”

It’s not really ‘lay down with me’. It’s more like ‘hold me’. Steve is pretty sure Bucky knows that though.

The second condom is disposed of, and Bucky crowds into Steve’s space on the twin mattress, barely big enough for Bucky alone. He nearly asks if Steve’s alright with this, but Steve hums happily, curled into the tight embrace and relaxes into the pillows.

They’ve subsided into stillness when two of the cats hop up to investigate them. Jenny, and the one he hasn’t met yet. “Sorry,” Steve slurs tiredly. “They usually sleep up here with me.”

“I don’t mind. I’m kind of stealing you.” Bucky reaches out to pet Jenny, who seems to have decided he’s good people. The other cat – Morgan? – is a gray mackerel tabby, and paces the nightstand uncertainly. Morgan’s left fore-paw is cybernetic and matches his fur, silvery and mysterious in the moonlight. Bucky wonders if that’s a coincidence or if he picked this anxious looking tabby because he reminded Steve of Bucky. “Why Jenny and Morgan?”

“Uh…Cat Morgan and Jennyanydots?” Steve says sheepishly.

“You named your cats after characters from the musical _Cats_?” he asks flatly.

“No, technically Pepper did,” he says defensively. “How do you know where it comes from, anyway?”

Bucky shrugs, and gently strokes a finger behind Morgan’s ear. The tabby flinches, then rubs against his hand. Approval met, apparently. “My mom liked Broadway. What about Chewie?”

“Chewie belongs to Carol, and he is the _literal worst_. I’ve been blackmailed into taking care of him now that I actually own cats. He’s a big bully and I’m tempted to throw him into a separate apartment until she gets back.” He can hear Steve scowling. They watch the cats settle onto the bed beside them, purring as they curl up. “I suppose I could’ve renamed them, but the names seem to fit pretty well. Pepper and Tony name them all after famous cats. I actually wanted Mogget but didn’t want to take Kerrigor too - call me superstitious. And…well…”

Steve scratches Morgan behind the ear, who squints happily up at him.

_He did. He picked them because Morgan reminds him of me._

“ _Te iubesc, comoara mea,_ ” Bucky says the words honestly, unable to hold them in anymore, with a brief caress to Steve’s jaw. “ _Noapte buna.”_

_I love you, my treasure. Goodnight._

Steve presses deeper into the wall of warm skin. Twenty years late, but he has a teddy bear of his very own now. “ _Agus is brea liom tu, a chuisle mo chroi,”_ Steve murmurs quietly, kissing the metal fingers. _“Codladh samh agat.”_

_And I love you, pulse of my heart. Sleep you well._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has been turned into a series. The more I wrote about this universe, the more it told me. I tried to hint a bit at some of the backstories here and there, but that was mostly to provide context for the main plot. If you're still thirsty, move on to part two, the Clintasha prequel: "all these in me, no means can move"
> 
> Edited 9/4/2018  
> I AM FREE!


End file.
